Class ^_X514^ 

Book • J <o L^Ja 

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



JENKIN LLOYD JONES 



"Grow old along with me. 
The best is yet to be, 
The last of life for which the first was made." 



CHICAGO 

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
1907 



NOV 9 I 



COPY 



COPYEIGHT 1907 By , 
The University of Chicago 

Published November 1907 



Composed and Printed By 
The University of Chicago Press 
Chicago, Dlinois, U. S. A. 



TO THE CONFIRMATION CLASS ALUMNI 

OF 

ALL SOULS CHURCH, CHICAGO 



In whose strength I am strong, in 
2vhose failures I am defeated, in 
whose love I find rest and peace. 



PRELUDE 

Remember also thy Creator in the days of thy 
youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw 
nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; 
before the sun, and the light, and the moon, and the 
stars, are darkened, and the clouds return after the 
rain; in the day when the keepers of the house shall 
tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and 
the grinders cease because they are few, and those 
that look out of the windows shall be darkened, and 
the doors shall be shut in the street; when the sound 
of the grinding is low, and one shall rise up at the 
voice of a bird, and all the daughters of music shall be 
brought low; yea, they shall be afraid of that which is 
high, and terrors shall be in the way; and the almond- 
tree shall blossom, and the grasshopper shall be a 
burden, and desire shall fail; because man goeth to 
his everlasting home, and the mourners go about the 
streets: before the silver cord is loosed, or the golden 
bowl is broken, or the pitcher is broken at the foun- 
tain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust 
returneth to the earth as it was, and the spirit return- 
eth unto God who gave it. 

This is the end of the matter; all hath been heard: 

vii 



viii 



PRELUDE 



fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the 
whole duty of man. For God will bring every work 
into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it 
he good, or whether it he evil. 

— Ecclesiastes 12:1-7, 13, 14. 



PREFACE 

*Trinted sermons do not sell!" So say the pub- 
lishers, and they know. Notwithstanding, here is 
another "book of sermons;" there is no use trying to 
disguise the fact — sermons with the inevitable repeti- 
tions and reiterations. They are published primarily 
for the benefit of the two hundred or more girls and 
boys to whom they were first delivered. With the 
exception of the introductory discourse, they are all 
of them ''class sermons," arranged in the order of 
their delivery. Thus they represent a cross-section 
of twenty-five years of a busy city ministry, and the 
volume is offered as a humble contribution to the 
quarter-centennial celebration of All Souls Church, 
Chicago. 

The text for each of these sermons is the class 
motto, for which the children sought diligently 
among the words of poet, prophet, ancient seer, and 
modern preacher. The search w^as often prolonged 
and laborious, but always delightful. No motto was 
chosen that did not finally represent a unanimity of 
opinion. Each text thus seemed at the time to be the 
keynote, not only to the studies but to the lives of 
those who cheerfully gave up their playtime one after- 
noon a week, from All Souls Day to Easter Day, that 
they might talk with their minister of the deep things 
of religion as discovered in the long story of human- 
ity and the short story of their own experience. It is 

ix 



X 



PREFACE 



thus a book of aspirations and encouragements; it 
seeks to inspire rather than to analyze the holy life. 
It is a book of illustrations and not of arguments. 
To fittingly state is to prove the religious life, for it 
is a thing of experience and not of doctrine. 

The conferences that led to these discourses frankly 
faced and freely discussed creeds and doctrines. The 
things that divide, the doctrines that provoke contro- 
versy, do not here obtrude themselves because the 
fundamentals are the universals; the conditions of 
nobility are the realities of religion. 

Many of the boys and girls to whom these sermons 
were first delivered are now men and women, know- 
ing the joys and responsibilities of home-making and 
parentage. Their junior associates are pressing hard 
after. They all belong to the larger Confirmation 
Class, made up of those who would fain confirm 
their faith in the right, deepen their trust in truth, 
and make sacred the claims of duty, which rest in 
the thought of the divine fatherhood and the human 
brotherhood. 

What is applicable to one group of youths may 
prove of value to another, and insofar as these 
sermons may reach the heart of the young, they will 
certainly appeal to their elders. Hence they are 
offered to such ''public" as they may reach. 

Jenkin Lloyd Jones 

Abraham Lincoln Centre, Chicago 
July 17, 1907 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. Life's Commencements. Introductory . . i 

II. The Supreme Quest (1886) 21 

III. An Appeal to Youth (1887) 37 

IV. Ideals (1888) 57 

V. Helping the Future (1889) 75 

VI. Success and Failure (1890) 97 

VII. Life's Commission (1891) 115 

VIII. The Life in Common (1892) 133 

IX. More Stately Mansions (1893) . . . . 151 

X. Into the Light (1894) 173 

XI. Little Candles (1895) 191 

XII. Little Waves (1896) 217 

XIII. Victories (1897) 235 

XIV. The Game of Life (1898) 257 

XV. The Sources of Power (1899) .... 273 

XVI. The Rhyme of Things (1900) .... 291 

XVII. About Thrones (1901) 309 

XVIII. '"'Lincoln Soldiers" (1902) 333 

XIX. The Greatest Gift (1903) . ... . . 353 

XX. A Daring Faith (1904) 371 

XXI. Secret Springs (1905) 393 

XXII. The Rosary of a Holy Life (1906). . . 415 

XXIII. Character-Building (1907) 435 



xi 



LIFE'S COMMENCEMENTS 



RALLYING SONG 



Comrades dear, the hour of meeting, 

Happy meeting, now is here. 
Hand in hand a cordial greeting 

Give we to our classmates dear. 
Golden are the cords which hind us. 

Truth and Love have made them strong. 
And our joyous hearts heat lighter 

As we join in happy song. 

Refrain: 

Fling on high our glorious hanner. 
Let its colors sweep the sky, 
While we sing its noble watchwords. 
Freedom and Fraternity. 

Day is breaking ! Souls are waking! 

Lovelight glows in eastern heaven; 
Truth, the sages taught the ages, 

Unto us — a trust — is given. 
Great the task that lies before us; 

We must labor day and night. 
Drive the dark of doubt before us. 

Widen swift the skirts of light. 

Onward ever; fear we never; 

Truth is hold and Right is strong. 
We will climb the heights before us; 

Gathering courage from our song. 
Forward then, for time is speeding; 

Forward comrades, with a will. 
Heaven is near us, God doth hear us; 

He will guard and guide us still. 

Kate S. Kellogg 



I 



LIFE'S COMMENCEMENTS 

June days are full of congratulations to "sweet 
girl graduates" and "brave boy orators." Every com- 
munity in these days feels a springlike touch of hope 
and freshness coming from the schoolroom. Thou- 
sands of homes are rejuvenated and in a high way 
reclaimed — that is to say, claimed again to the service 
of the ideal — by the achievements of the schoolroom. 
Thousands of people find their lives recommitted to 
sweet and heroic things by the persuasive words that 
fall from the inexperienced lips of boys and girls. 
Inspiring is the thought of preparation years 
ripening into executive years, as the fragrant hours 
of the early morning give way to the exacting vigor 
of the working hours. 

Metaphors abound. The soldier now fully equip- 
ped, ready for battle; the sailor with cargo all aboard, 
ready to hoist his sail; the farmer with his field 
plowed and seeded, ready to till and to garner — these 
and a thousand other figures are being worked and 
overworked on the graduation platforms of our 
American schools. 

I would not detract from this ideality. I do not 
distrust the song that pulses in the heart of the 
fledgeling as he stands on the brink of the nest, impa- 
tient to try his wings, drunk with the glad inspiration 
that pants to test the joys of flight and to know the 

3 



4 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



freedom of the upper air; though I may know what 
he does not, that the brink of that nest is not the start- 
ing-point to soaring flight, but that there will be 
many a tumble before the glad, confident voyage be 
realized. 

There is, from the vantage-ground of years, an 
undertone of sadness in all this congratulation over 
"the completion of study," "the finishing of the 
course." There is in these phrases a strange irony, 
much of which is corrected by the happy old English 
term "commencement;" for this word suggests a 
beginning and not an ending of study. 

In too many lives graduation day does indicate 
a stopping-place rather than a station upon the road. 
When the "exercises" are over, the "examinations" 
ended, "commencement day," with its ephemeral 
triumphs and unstable honors, passed, there comes 
the sad disillusion which shows how necessarily 
imperfect was the work accomplished, how crude and 
deceptive the power assumed. We are in danger of 
making too much of the "diploma" in our American 
schools. The parchment engrossed in ornate text, 
sometimes worded in bombastic Latin, and signed by 
faculty and trustee, often misrepresents more than it 
represents. Life at twenty is of necessity an imma- 
ture and incomplete thing, however the examinations 
and gradings may stand. Said Thomas Starr King: 
"Nobody can become wise in the best college on this 
planet between twelve and twenty." 

Let us, then, remember that the graduate is an 



LIFE'S COMMENCEMENTS 



5 



immature being, physically, mentally, and spiritually. 
The strain of "getting through" overreaches the 
mark. The ''tasks," instead of being behind, are still 
before. That is a shallow and abnormal estimate of 
life that encourages the student to struggle through 
to the end of the school course, then draw a long 
breath, and, with painful and dangerous complacency, 
close the books of study with a vast show of relief 
and forthwith ''begin life" on lower levels by vacating 
the upper stories of the mind. If parents were half 
as eager to surround their children with incentives to 
culture and stimulants to study after leaving school 
as they are to keep them in school long enough to 
receive a diploma and "finish" a course, there would 
be less need to bemoan the obvious fact that many sons 
and daughters who take honors in school disappoint 
the expectations of graduation day. 

"My son or daughter can have no more time for 
preparation; he or she must now go to work" — this 
is a sad way of putting it. Such a boy or girl is just 
at Life's commencement, and there is no good reason 
why the work and the study should not go on 
together, making of the future years growing years. 

It is the justifiable boast of the manual-training 
schools that a systematic use of the hands in technical 
and practical ways increases the activity of the brain 
and makes it more ready to grasp the principles hid- 
den in books and out of which books are made. 
Work stimulates and emphasizes study. If this is 
true in school, why should it not be true out of school? 



6 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



The young man or young woman who assumes that 
intellectual activities must be forgotten in the so- 
called practical affairs of life, reasons from very 
inadequate premises, and bargains for intellectual 
stagnation and spiritual apathy. In the large estimate 
of life, it is safe to say that the mind's maximum is 
not reached on the sunrise side of fifty. Other things 
being equal, no one prefers the opinion of a physician 
at twenty-five to that of one at forty-five. The boy 
lawyer does not carry the weight at the bar that the 
attorney does who has grown gray in his profession. 
It is an unconscious confession of the unreality of 
much of our religion and of the artificiality and 
conventionality of the life of many churches, that 
there is often a fancy for young preachers, a prefer- 
ence for the suavity and glibness that go with 
youth, rather than for the wisdom and serenity that 
are born of experience. The great achievements of 
life have been accomplished by men and women in the 
gray of life, not in the downy years of youth. The 
very reasons we offer why study must cease are the 
reasons which make the acquiring of knowledge not 
only more imperative but more possible than ever. 

I would not dampen the enthusiasm or mar the 
joys of the commencement hour, but I would conse- 
crate this enthusiasm and perpetuate the joys. It may 
be useful for graduates to make a thoughtful study 
of some of those who have preceded them on the 
graduation platform. A college graduate comes to 
his high moment at the end of a gracious procession 



LIFE'S COMMENCEMENTS 



7 



of white-robed and garlanded youths that have made 
streets beautiful, homes sunny, the names of cliurches 
blessed. In grammar school, high school, and college 
he has joined in applauding some fourteen or sixteen 
such classes that have gone before him. With all 
these happy memories and radiant pictures, let him 
look back and see how many of the "graduates" have 
pushed their studies farther into the science they 
affected; how many have increased their acquaintance 
with the poets they quoted in their graduating essays ; 
how many still pursue the culture they eulogized on 
Commencement Day; how many of them continue to 
cultivate an acquaintance with the perennial books to 
which their schools days introduced them. 

If the result of such an inquiry be disappointing, 
then let the past graduate be a sacred warning to 
present graduates. It is evident that the school dis- 
cipline did not sufficiently strengthen the sinews of 
the will so that they might contend successfully with 
the dissipations and frivolities of life. The love of 
culture, the charm of poetry, the fascinations of 
science, and, above all, the joy of production, had not 
penetrated deep enough into the heart to become a 
ruling passion, a lifelong impelling power. 

Our first congratulations to the graduate, then, 
should be, not on account of what he has acquired, 
but because of that which is yet to be acquired. His 
past is rich only when it makes his future still richer. 
The opportunities for developing the intellectual life 
from twenty-five to fifty, though these years be 



8 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



enmeshed in hard work and severe poverty, are greater 
than they can possibly be from five to twenty-five. Oh 
graduate, I congratulate you because you have left 
behind the hothouse methods, the cramming process, 
the hurrying strain of the schoolroom; you have 
completed the training directed by others ; now before 
you is the opportunity of deliberate acquirement, of 
soul-development, of painstaking research, of self- 
directing and self-constructing growth. There is for 
you a margin of time for study such as will make 
great intellectual acquirements possible in the next 
twenty-five or thirty years. Indeed, your dangers lie 
not in the direction of too much preoccupation. 

Spiritually speaking, the growth of that boy or 
girl is most threatened whose future is most choked 
with privileges, whose life is to be cursed with uncon- 
secrated leisure, whose strength is to be depleted with 
too much "means." Are they whose lives are neces- 
sarily cast amid books, pictures, social ease, and 
material luxury necessarily the favored ones? The 
contrary is too often true. From them the world 
sometimes has least to expect in point of sympathy, 
self-denial, and helpfulness of hand or heart. If my 
word could reach all who are about to turn from the 
schoolroom to hard work and to poor pay, I would 
say : You will have leisure and opportunity in the next 
twenty-five years which if not wasted, may make you 
intelligent in some of the sciences, familiar with a 
few of the great classics in literature, companions and 
more or less competent interpreters of some of the 



LIFE'S COMMENCEMENTS 



9 



great master-minds of humanity. This you can 
accompHsh alongside of, and in spite of, the maxi- 
mum of cooking and earning, sewing, serving, toil- 
ing, which the grim years may have in store for you. 
This you may do if you will, and thus turn grimness 
into graciousness. 

But in order to do this you must get rid of the 
delusion of a "Graduation Day," and make it instead 
a "Commencement Day." You must learn to despise 
the digloma that marks a stopping-place, and to prize 
the diploma that is the hopeful measure of ignorance 
and an introduction to the advance studies of life. 
The school house is perhaps not the best place to make 
brain, albeit a blessed help in the process and the best 
introduction to the better place. The college has no 
monopoly of the instruments of culture. The 
great brain-work of the world, the high achievements 
in all departments of human thought and research, 
have been accomplished outside of classrooms and 
independently of professors. Experience is the best 
of schoolmasters. The strong thinkers of the world 
have frequently been the readers of comparatively few 
books. Culture is never the result primarily of out- 
ward resources, but of inward energy. It would not 
be difficult to name one novel, one biography, one 
poem, and one book of essays, which might be com- 
passed in a year's time by the busiest man or woman, 
if possessed of the scholar's devotion to seek the best 
and the student's fortitude to be willing not to know 
everything in order to be sure of knowing something 



10 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



that would be an unfailing source of strength and 
joy throughout life. This could be accomplished by 
simply cutting off the abuses and the wastes of life. 

But the woman cannot realize this who gives her 
energies to the perplexities of '^society," how to dress, 
and how to keep up with the procession. The man 
complacently confesses that he has forgotten what he 
once learned at college or high school. Then he was 
interested in geology or physics ; then he liked Homer 
or Shakespeare; but now he has had to give them 
all up because his 'Svork is so exacting," his ''business 
is so narrowing," and the ''competitions of trade are 
so tyrannical." Is it this; or may it not be because 
the restless energy, the divine hunger, of the mind 
has been smitten with the lethargic fumes of tobacco 
which he has wooed with such dreamy indolence, 
or the shallow joys of the card-table through the 
hours that might have been seasons of delightful 
study? He has had such a hard time to get along 
that he has had but little money for lectures, art, 
books, or church privileges ; but he has had money and 
time for costly indulgences that do not stimulate the 
mind or expand the heart. Let such a one count up 
his own daily investment, the self-assessed tax for the 
things which have interfered with his growth of mind 
and expansion of soul, and let him, confronted by 
his own figures, realize that he has bargained for his 
own stupidity, that he has defeated life in his quest 
for success, that he has pauperized the man in order 
to make prosperous the man's affairs. 



LIFE'S COMMENCEMENTS 



ZI 



All hail the graduates who on Commencement 
Day enter upon a continuous life-course; who are 
promoted into the higher university of the world, the 
curriculum of which includes the study of a woman's 
heart, the analysis of a husband's wants, a father's 
strength, a baby's smile, a neighbor's loyalty, a 
nation's need. You now enter upon a course that 
will take fifty years, God granting, to complete the 
undergraduate's work; and at the end of that time 
there will come another blessed Commencement Day, 
when the graduate enters into the university of the 
eternal life, the celestial seminary, where growth is 
still not only the privilege but the duty of the soul. 
Expansion must be the demand of heaven, as it is of 
earth. 

In pleading for the intellectual life, I plead for the 
economic life. There is nothing in this world so 
cheap as intelligence, nothing so inexpensive as cul- 
ture. The higher life need seldom plead the argu- 
ment of exhaustion : 'T am too tired to read ; I am 
too sleepy to think when night comes !" Dear soul, 
do you realize that you are tired because you have 
partaken of no refreshment? The mind grows 
emaciated with the hunger which beef cannot appease. 
The brain grows drowsy for want of thought. There 
is physical strength in brain-activity. There is 
money-making power in poetry. The only way to 
make your own life endurable is to fill it with that 
which makes life radiant. By thought it is possible 
to convert pain into inspiration. By thought you may 



12 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



coin poverty into wealth — a wealth which thieves 
cannot steal, which moth cannot corrupt. 

''Give me a great thought that I may refresh my- 
self with it," said the dying Herder. ''Read me some- 
thing, something that has got meat in it, something 
from Paul," said the faint and hungry Lute Taylor, 
a Wisconsin poet who died ere his lamp was trimmed 
to give the clear flame that it was meant for. I 
remember that once, years ago, a poor, overworked, 
faded and fagged woman came to me, literally faint- 
ing under the burdens of life. She had been sorely 
pinched by circumstances. The hard exactions of life 
had pushed strength and endurance to the limit. She 
could not sleep. She could not rest. She could only 
work. I said: "Can you not read?" "Oh, I have no 
time or strength. I have not brain enough left at the 
end of my day's work." "Try it," I said; "try 
Emerson; take his essay on 'Compensation.'" She 
did try, and slowly on the lines of high thinking she 
won her way back to peace and poise and health. She 
learned to pillow her head upon the serene thought- 
fulness of this physician of soul. Many years after- 
wards, with renewed health and youth, she pointed to 
the treasured volume as her cure. "This," she said, 
"is my Bible. It still gives me strength to live." 

If the brains of the young are immature, their 
moral natures are necessarily untried and "sappy." 
Pliant, graceful, susceptible, yielding, they may be 
like the young sapling emerging from the twig, but 
not stalwart, resisting, commanding, sublime like the 



j 



LIFE'S COMMENCEMENTS 



13 



towering oak against which the storm strikes in vain, 
whose deep-seated heart the rifle ball cannot reach. 
We must correct our unphilosophic theory of the 
cherubic quality of child-nature ; we must get over the 
sentimental impression that youth needs but wings to 
make it angelic, and that, if the ''coarse thumb of the 
world," the dirty-handed world, did not besmirch 
them, all young men would emerge full-fledged 
patriots, heroes, prophets, and saints. The contrary 
is true. It is this very same maligned world that 
takes the embryo conscience of the young man and 
young woman, oftentimes vacillating, selfish, greedy, 
visionless, and tempers it in the heat of conflict and 
the cold waters of disappointment, so that in due time 
it may stand the test, hold its edge, and prove a 
nation's defense. 

The intellectual life of man began before the 
moral life. Our schools are more successful in teach- 
ing theorems of geometry than in teaching the axioms 
of the moral law. But God has revealed himself in 
the moral universe in the same way as in the physical 
universe. Here as there he is discoverable only by 
observation and investigation. Duty is revealed only 
to the student of duty. Its assurances come to those 
alone who test and practice. ''I hate that man," said 
the impulsive Charles Lamb. ''Do you know him?" 
asked a friend. "Of course not. If I did, I could not 
hate him," was the stammering reply of the tender 
heart. Profoundly studied, men cannot be hated, for 
in the meanest soul there is the effulgence of God, 



14 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



as the radiance of heaven is in the farthest star and 
the heat of the sun in the pebble under our feet. 

Just so one can be indifferent to the problems of 
reform and the moral questions of the day only by 
being ignorant of them. Think of dress reform, 
labor agitation, or the temperance question, and you 
can smile at them, "pooh-pooh" them, scorn them only 
by cuddling your ignorance of them. Look into any 
of them, touch any one of them intimately, 
and your heart warms to it, your head yields it atten- 
tion, and your soul glows with the fires of interest and 
enthusiasm. Get yourself to studying am^ problem, 
and you will find it growing on your hands. Follow 
the laborer into his union, and note the divine restless- 
ness of those who have been too long contented with 
mere existence. Consider the temperance problem. 
Ask not of the fanatic, but of the physician and the 
statistician : ''What of this muddy stream of beer, this 
'little wine for the stomach's sake,' or for 'sociability's 
sake'?" Let them tell you of the bodily organs bur- 
dened and stultified by it. Let them tell you of men 
diverted from nobler channels, of women's lives 
pauperized, of homes made soggy and shallow. 
Follow these things into their haunts, the swill pud- 
dles of our city; note the fatty degeneracy in bloated 
faces, and see if you can maintain your genteel indif- 
ference and your polite complacency concerning these 
agitations and agitators. You can laugh at the young 
man's cigar and condone the boy's cigarette only by 
preserving your ignorance, by keeping your conscience 



LIFE'S COMMENCEMENTS 



15 



in the sophomoric stupidity of Graduation Day con- 
cerning them. Take a postgraduate course in the 
ethics of smoking; note the spiritual significance of 
the cigarette ; trace nicotine in its fell, though sly and 
slow, journey through the brain; listen to the testi- 
mony of the professors in the Paris University, who 
tell you that their smoking students stand lower in 
scholarship than others; let the doctors of the Lon- 
don Dispensary tell you that they cannot apply leeches 
to tobacco-using patients because the poisoned blood 
promptly kills the leech; let the wardens of smallpox 
hospitals give the increased mortality of their tobacco- 
using patients; let Dr. Hammond, ex-surgeon- 
general of the United States army, a conservative 
authority, tell you the pathological effects of tobacco 
— and then see where you are landed. 

I call upon you graduates to take up these post- 
graduate studies in morals, that you may gain the 
indignations of active consciences and the consola- 
tions of quickened minds; for religion and morals, 
like science, find their inspiration in study. The so- 
called ''Revelations" of religion need to be corrected 
and humanized by the study of subsequent ages. The 
moral sense needs training and developing. Justice is 
as complicated as mathematics, duty is as subtle as 
beauty, and both must be pursued in the same way. 
The virtue of today may be the wickedness of tomor- 
row. What was spiritual sensibility in the young 
man or young woman at eighteen may harden into 
bigotry at forty. I plead for postgraduate work in 



i6 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



morals. Young men and women, strive to bring your 
knowledge of right and love up to date. 

Here again let us seek no shelter behind excuses. 
Let us do our share of sincere thinking and of honest 
work. No man can be so poor that he cannot afford a 
clean conscience; and that only is a clean conscience 
which is an enlightened conscience. There is such a 
thing as damnable stupidity. Indeed, all stupidity is 
such when it is deliberately bargained for. The 
human soul is a climber, and only climbers know the 
joys of life. 

But let me not overemphasize the dangers of 
Graduation Day. Neither the intellectual nor the 
spiritual life is a thing of years. There is never a 
time when the soul does not need to be allied to all 
that is forceful, alive, and progressive. There will 
never be a time when the price of life is not living, 
never a time when the soul may not press forward 
with youth's ardor. One is never too old to learn, 
never too old to begin again, never old enough to 
"graduate." There are no "bread-and-butter necessi- 
ties," no home claims, no obligations to party and to 
country, that are not enveloped in right, that are not 
embosomed in duty; and these again, I say, are dis- 
covered only by thought, by patient investigation, by 
persistent study. The soul, like Sarah, is never too 
old to give birth to Isaac, the child whose name is 
"Laughter," the child of joy, cheer, and encourage- 
ment. 

In Swedenborg's heaven the oldest angels are the 



LIFE'S COMMENCEMENTS 



17 



youngest. The Bible says: 'There is that which 
scattereth, yet groweth strong." This is the paradox 
of the higher Hfe, the secret of the perpetual university, 
whose curriculum is endless. Let us be sorry for the 
girl who thinks she has "finished" her studies; let us 
be ashamed for the boy who thinks that he has 
"received an education." Let us discourage the 
schools, if any there are, that are party to this infatua- 
tion ; let us distrust even the salvation that is finished. 
The soul cannot be rounded out intellectually or 
spiritually by the time it is twenty years, or forty 
years, or ten thousand years old. Culture is practice 
ever growing. The soul is ever being saved out of 
lower into higher life. 

In these graduation days, then, we celebrate, not 
an ending, but a commencement; days, not of dis- 
charge, but of enlistment. We do not close life, but 
we open it. Let souls continue to aspire and struggle, 
and not accept destiny meekly. In these commence- 
ment days life takes a new lease on investigation, 
makes a new escape from dogmatism. Like Angelo 
at eighty, it dares undertake a new task, the building 
of a St. Peter's of the soul. 

I would not be blind to the beauty of the callow 
birdling. But I remember that the most interesting 
thing connected with that bit of softness in the moun- 
tain nest is that it is an eagle's chick, and that some 
day its pinions will be strong enough to rise above the 
storm, to soar over the ruggedest crag of the most 
inaccessible mountain. We will not be blind to the 



i8 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



great beauty of Commencement Day. I gladly yield 
myself to the enjoyment of the ''sweet girl graduates" 
and the ''brave boy orators;" but the most interesting 
thing about them is that they do not know much now 
compared with what they are yet to know. They 
have been matching rhymes in preparation for the 
poetry they are yet to be, if not to write. Some day 
the ideality of these girls will be precipitated into 
wholesome matrons, and the ambition of these boys 
will make of the sapling the great tree yielding the 
toughened and seasoned timber already alluded to. 
Any other view would make of the white graduation 
dresses a Chinese funeral garb, a symbol of mourn- 
ing, because it would mark a pathetic stopping-place. 

It may be asked : Why are the ideals of the uni- 
versity so remote from our lives? Why is the promise 
of our schools so often unfulfilled in our living? 
Why do graduates so often disappoint us? In reply, 
every specialist will offer his own explanation. One 
will point to the awful traflic of rum ; another, to the 
narcotic weed, benumbing and stultifying the finer 
sensibilities of society; another, to the fact that 
woman's rightful place in the state is so long and 
unjustly denied her; another will point to false fash- 
ion, hampering dress, and social distractions ; another 
will find the trouble in the fact that the rights of labor 
are trampled upon, and brain and brawn are poorly 
adjusted; others will plead the perplexities of "Tariff 
Protection" and the "congestions of trade," and still 
others the debilitating power of doubt and the invad- 



LIFE'S COMMENCEMENTS 



19 



ing demoralizations of heresy. These are all in the 
right, and all in the wrong. It is not because any one 
disjointed and dismembered reform is belated, but 
because of the slowness of society to realize, on the 
one hand, that any violation of any law in the world 
is sin against the God of the universe, from the penalty 
of which no one can escape on any plea of ignorance 
or under any ''bill of exceptions," and, on the other 
hand, that all the virtues are of a piece, and that keep- 
ing one of them demands the keeping of all of them. 
No college parchment can make a ''bachelor of 
science" or "master of arts" out of a silly girl or a 
tainted boy, and no culture of book or of laboratory 
can make a gentleman out of a selfish soul or a 
teacher out of a shallow woman. This conception of 
morals, this appreciation of spiritual laws, is slowly 
dawning upon those who pursue the postgraduate 
studies of life in the perpetual university of the 
world. 

Come forth into life, oh, young man and young 
woman! Come close to the heart of nature. Find 
shelter in the shadow of the masters. Find inspira- 
tion in the quest which inspired them. Wordsworth's 
"meanest flower that blows," Tennyson's "flower in 
the crannied wall," Burns's "mountain daisy," and 
Emerson's "rhodora" bloom for you and for me, 
and have for us their lesson too deep for tears, too high 
for doubt. The little sandpiper runs across the sandy 
beach, and the water-fowl wings its solitary way 
through the blue above, for you and for me as for 



20 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



Celia Thaxter and William Cullen Bryant; and 
they may teach us, as them, lessons of trust, 
lessons of hope, lessons of high emprise, of 
bold adventure, of tireless quest. Through 
these and all helps we may "forget the things 
which are behind, stretch forward to the things 
that are before, press on toward the goal unto the 
prize of the high calling of God as it was in Christ 
Jesus," as it is in the vision that glows in your own 
hearts on this consecrated mount. 



THE SUPREME QUEST 



WORSHIP 

This is he, who felled by foes, 

Sprung harmless up, refreshed by blows: 

He to captivity was sold, 

But him no prison-bars would hold: 

Though they sealed him in a rock. 

Mountain chains he can unlock: 

Thrown to lions for their meat, 

The crouching lion kissed his feet; 

Bound to the stake, no flames appalled, 

But arched o'er him an honoring vault. 

This is he men miscall Fate, 

Threading dark ways, arriving late. 

But ever coming in time to cr'.ozvn 

The truth, and hurl wrong-doers down. 

He is the oldest and best known, 

More near than aught thou callst thy own. 

Yet, greeted in another's eyes. 

Disconcerts with glad surprise. 

This is Jove, who, deaf to prayers, 

Floods with blessings unawares. 

Draw, if thou canst, the mystic line 

Severing rightly his from thine, 

Which is human, which divine. 

— Ralph Waldo Emerson 



II 



THE SUPREME QUEST 

Truth is the oily armor in all passages of life and death. 
— Emerson 

I have little use for age lines except to ignore 
them. I am not thinking of the children only, or of 
the unmarried, who are generally counted among the 
''young people." I am not thinking of boys and girls 
begging, in the exuberance of youth, for a postpone- 
ment of life's serious problems, asking for a little 
longer respite from the solemnities and responsibili- 
ties of life, saying: ''Age and its perplexities, 
maturity and its anxieties, will come soon enough. 
Let us have a little more fun, a little more gaiety, 
a little longer play-time." I am thinking, rather, of 
those who are becoming conscious of powers 
not yet fully developed, energies not yet wholly 
directed, opportunities not yet appropriated. I 
am thinking of the young men and women deep in 
college studies, and the boys and girls in the happy 
delirium, of school days, who are in danger of losing 
their way among their charts and missing the deep 
significance of life's sentences in the confusion of 
their conjugations and their parsings. I am think- 
ing of young men and women who are already in the 
battle of life, in some real fashion wage-earners, who 
have not yet fully realized that privileges mean 
responsibilities, that protection means obligation, and 

23 



24 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



that the opportunities of Hfe are taxable under the 
statutes of the Eternal. I am thinking of young men 
and women who have felt, and dared confess, the. 
sweet but awful attractions of love. I am thinking 
of the young father and mother who have dared 
assume the responsibility of bringing children into 
the world, sweet and plastic bits of spiritual wax to 
be formed or deformed under the molding hand. 

To all these I would speak of the Supreme Quest 
of Life; for my text is a spark out of the glowing 
heart of Emerson's great appeal to youth, his essay 
on ''Worship" in the volume entitled The Conduct of 
Life, whose very title is an eloquent and searching 
appeal. Listen to the sweet persuasion of the full 
sentence : 

How it comes to us in silent hours that truth is the only 
armor in all passages of life and death. 
This is the second exclamation. Note the preceding 
one : 

How a man's truth comes to mind long after we have for- 
gotten all his words ! — 

So much is text. Note the commentary: 

Wit is cheap and anger is cheap; but if you cannot argue or 
explain yourself to the other party, cleave to the truth, against 
me against thee, and you gain a station from which you cannot 
be dislodged. The other party will forget the words that you 
spoke, but the part you took continues to plead for you. 

I have been careful to indicate the source and sur- 
roundings of my text, because I am sure the best 
service my little sermon can render you will be that 



THE SUPREME QUEST 



25 



of sending you to the original scripture and helping 
you to a first-hand acquaintance with this evangel of 
Emerson, which may well become a fifth gospel in 
your New Testament. 

Turn to the pages of the essay on 'Worship," 
read the passages which have been underscored dur- 
ing previous study, and see how the text grows on 
you. From the introductory poem to the great climax 
at the end, it is one great invitation to you to yield to 
the Supreme Quest, to seek the truth, to trust it when 
found, to live in its inspirations and die in its consola- 
tions. 

This is he men miscall Fate, 
Threading dark ways, arriving late. 
But ever coming in time to crown 
The truth, and hurl wrong-doers down. 
Nor do I fear skepticism for any good soul. 
I dip my pen in the blackest ink because I am not afraid of 
falling into my inkpot. 

The solar system has no anxiety about its reputation and 
the credit of truth and of honesty is as safe. 

We are born loyal, the whole creation is made of hooks and 
eyes, of bitumen and of sticking plaster. And whether your 
community is made in Jerusalem or in California, of saints or of 
wreckers, it coheres in a perfect ball. 

We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears 
apples. 

The stern old faiths have all pulverized. 'Tis a whole popu- 
lation of gentlemen and ladies out in search of religions 

Yet we make shift to live, men are loyal, nature has self-poise in 

all her works God builds his temple in the heart on the 

ruins of churches and religions. 



26 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



When heroes existed, when poems were made, the human 
soul was in earnest. 

Shallow men believe in luck, in circumstances Strong 

men believe in cause and effect. 

Skepticism is unbelief in cause and effect. 

The dice are loaded, the colors are fast because they are the 
native colors of the fleece. 

Nothing for nothing, or things are as broad as they are long, 
is not a rule for Littleton or Portland, but for the universe. 

There is no privacy that cannot be penetrated Society 

is a mask-ball where everyone hides his real character and 
reveals it by hiding. 

The divine assessors come up with man into life. 

What is vulgar and the essence of vulgarity but the avarice 
of reward? 

Fear God, and where you go men shall think they walk in 
hallowed cathedrals. 

Love, humility, faith, the glory of the human being, are also 
the intimacy of Divinity in the atoms. 

With duty for his guide man can face danger for the right; 
a poor, tender, painful body can run into flame or bullets or 
pestilence. 

The moral .... is the coin which buys all and which all 
find in their pocket. 

Higher than the question of our duration is the question of 
our deserving. 

The weight of the universe is pressed down on the shoulders 
of each moral agent to hold him to his task. The only path of 
escape known in all the worlds of God is performance. You must 
do your work before you shall be released. 

"There are two things," said Mahomet, "which I abhor : 
the learned in his infidelities and the fool in his devotions." 

Honor and fortune exist to him who always recognizes the 
neighborhood of the great, always feels himself in the presence 
of high causes. 



THE SUPREME QUEST 



27 



These are sample stones, polished and precious, 
selected by the appreciative, though not always dis- 
criminating, pencil in some long-since-forgotten read- 
ing. If the disjointed fragments are so beautiful, 
how much more so is the balanced and poised column 
in its glowing completeness! 

My first and most earnest appeal to the young 
at this time is that they will read this essay on "Wor- 
ship" — read it and brood over it until they grow 
strong enough to live it more and more triumphantly, 
thus proving that truth is the adequate as well as the 
sole armor in all the trying passages of life and 
death. 

But our text is no sooner stated than we encounter 
the old question of Pilate: "What is truth?" for, 
whether born out of honest despair or out of moral 
cowardice, the New Testament question yet stands, 
the shield of the flippant, at the threshold of our 
inquiry. With it the lazy and the selfish parry the 
thrust of conscience. "What is truth?" "Show it 
to me, prove it to me, and I follow it; but why tor- 
ture me with the unattainable, or browbeat me with 
the unproved, the undiscoverable ?" 

To this question we can safely make a few confi- 
dent answers that will strip us of our excuses and 
make plain the portion of the path of duty that lies 
just before us, however obscured the beginning and 
remote the end of the path may be. 

Truth is not a creation of fancy or feeling. 
Human reason may discover, but cannot create, a 



28 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



single link in that endless chain of reality which is 
truth. The civil engineer must needs have at least 
two points outside of and beyond himself before he 
can start a single measuring line on the face of the 
earth. If he makes his own standpoint one end of 
his line, he can run it in any direction and it will 
prove nothing in the geography of the world. Truth 
has an objective reality. It belongs, not to your 
whims, your prejudices or preferences, but to the 
plans of the universe, the poise of things, the laws of 
the Eternal, to which we must conform because we 
cannot change them. Truth is not what you wish or 
I want, not what you think or I claim, but the 
order of things, the condition of cause and effect, 
the sequence of law. 

Truth, then, is no projection of the human mind. 
It is an embodiment of the divine order. Humanly 
speaking, truth is the quest of the human soul; only 
so much of it is discovered as is incarnated. Truth 
must be embodied in purpose, in spirit, in love; so 
truth is always ethical. There is a moral quality in 
the truth-seeker. Justice is the balance of things. 
Right is man's way of spelling God's truth. As 
truth is the supreme quest of life, so right is the 
superlative test. Duty is a better guide than stars or 
statutes. Doing is the road to knowing; being is 
more than thinking; indeed, it is the condition of all 
thought. Not with the head alone, nor yet with the 
heart alone, but with all thy soul and with all thy 
mind shalt thou love the Lord, who is truth supreme. 



THE Sl|?REME QUEST 29 

But the young ma;/ feel, if they do not urge, the 
demurrer that truth is anything but an armor in time 
of battle, or a defense in time of need. Whether you 
study life at short range and note how it is with 
your neighbor, or study it at long range and mark 
the ways of history, you have a right to the suspicion 
that truth leads to dangers dire and persistent. Truth 
is a menace to comfort, a handicap in the race of life. 
Truth is inconvenient in ''society," as every ambi- 
tious wife or mother knows. Truth seems to be well- 
nigh impossible in trade, as nearly every business 
man unblushingly confesses. Truth makes one poor 
and keeps one poor. Truth makes enemies, ostra- 
cizes her devotees, and has sacrificed her prophets 
on the scaffold, at the gibbet, and on the cross. Said 
James Freeman Clarke: ''All reformers have been 
hated and persecuted by those whom they desired to 
reform." Selfishness is the recognized law of com- 
merce, and self -protection and self -advancement, 
rivalry and competition, bloody wars and relentless 
conquests, have marked the road to national power. 
They indicate the price paid for dominion. 

Renan calls attention to the interesting testimony 
of language to this grim law. He tells us that the 
old Hebrews had one word for "gentle" and for 
"poor," and that "unfortunate" and "pious," 
"oppressed" and "humble," "poor" and "holy," were 
interchangeable words in the vocabulary of Israel. 
He adds that, when once in his oriental travels he 
spoke well of the inhabitants of a certain village, 



30 



^LOVE AND LOYALTY 



his dragoman replied: "It is not surprising, they 
are all poor people." On the other hand, the words 
"rich" and ''strong" came also to mean ''cruel" and 
"exorbitant," in the speech of Jewry. 

No, it hardly appears that truth is an armor effec- 
tive in the physical, social, or intellectual warfare of 
this world. The young mother feels this when she 
unconsciously becomes more solicitous that her child 
should learn to dance than that it should know the 
Decalogue. She may be shocked at this way of put- 
ting it, but she will contrive to give more personal 
attention to the former than to the latter. The young 
husband feels it when he seeks the club and its sanc- 
tions, rather than the church and its checks and 
rebukes, its warnings and its inspirations. The man 
of politics feels it when he serves expediency rather 
than justice, seeks to lean on public opinion rather 
than to lead it or defy it, or draws a wide distinction 
between a "safe leader" and the prophet and reformer. 

And yet all this is but a superficial and, in the 
long run, a false reading of the laws of life. Even 
the coarser and lower interests of life cannot be per- 
manently served by anything but truth. Society fails 
in the end to take care of her unscrupulous devotees. 
The flippant man and the silly woman go to their 
own place in spite of all their "frills" and "func- 
tions," their "receptions," their amusements, and 
their etiquette. Even in business the scales of 
trade are made of steel; the stern hand of fate lays 
ultimate hold of the unscrupulous peculator and the 



THE SUPREME QUEST 



31 



reckless speculator, and proves that even here ''hon- 
esty is the best policy." 

And the time is coming, if it is not already here, 
when the president and the prophet must stand in the 
same pair of shoes, and the statesman must lead 
and not follow public opinion. The masses would 
fain hail their representatives in the van, rather than 
beckon them up from the rear. The higher concep- 
tion of government is a co-ordination of the people 
in an effort to bring the life of the many more and 
more to a level with the attainments of the few; in 
other words, to actualize the ideal. Thus the former 
must also be the reformer of public morals and 
ideals. The legislative department must become a 
school of government; the judicial department must 
represent the heart as well as the science of justice; 
and the executive must be, not simply the servant of 
the people, but the interpreter of the people's life, 
the guardian of their higher interests, the leader and 
not the follower of the loyal masses. 

This theory of government is vindicated by his- 
tory. No fertility of acres, no prosperity of com- 
merce, no achievement on the battlefield, has ever 
yet made a nation honorable; much less made it 
permanent in the annals of the world. 

Let the story of Israel once and for all answer as 
illustration and proof of this statement, and let 
Renan state the case for me : 

The thinkers of Israel were the first to revolt against the 
injustice of the world, to refuse their submission to the inequali- 



32 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



ties, the abuses, and the privileges without which there can 
neither be an army nor a strong society. They compromised the 
existence of their petty nationality, but they founded the religious 
edifice which, under the name of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam- 
ism, has served as a refuge for humanity down to the present 
day. Here we have a lesson upon which modern nations cannot 
reflect too much. The nations which abandon themselves to 
social questions will perish, but, if the future belongs to such 
questions, it will be a grand thing to have died for the cause 
which is destined to triumph. All the plain, sensible people of 
Jerusalem, about the year 500 b. c, were furious with the prophets, 
who rendered all military or diplomatic action impossible. What 
a pity, nevertheless, it would have been if these sublime madmen 
had been arrested ! Jerusalem, perhaps, would have remained 
for a little longer the capital of an insignificant kingdom; but 
she would not be the religious capital of humanit}-. 

Illustrations crowd. The pages of history are 
resplendent with the names of those who have 
proved the sufficiency of truth as an adequate armor 
in all passages of life and death. If ever a man fell 
on evil times, it was Jeremiah. He had to witness 
the severest ordeal of a patriot and a prophet. He 
had to stand by and see his country invaded by a 
foreign foe, until the capital city was sacked, burned, 
and left in desolation. He saw his nation grow 
degenerate under the corrupting influences of alien 
peoples, and her religious altars neglected and 
deserted by her own children. He suffered every 
indignity possible from those high in office and from 
the servile multitude ; he was pilloried in the public 
square ; the dungeon in the prison keep was not terrible 
enough for him, and he was lowered by ropes into a 



THE SUPREME QUEST 



33 



muddy cistern; and still he persisted in singing clear 
the hymns of faith, testifying to the truth as he saw 
it. It was his message, written not upon parchment, 
but upon the lives of men and women — aye, written 
in his own enkindling life — that permeated the walls 
of Babylon, eluded her armies, defied loneliness and 
death, within half a century brought Israel back to 
her lost city, and with a new generation rebuilded her 
temples and made Jesus and his disciples possible. 

Dropping down through six hundred or more 
years of troublesome times, we come upon another 
Jew who, according to his own estimate at least, was 
weak of body and insignificant of presence, ever 
with "a. thorn in the flesh." He writes of himself: 

In labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in 
prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. 

Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. 

Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I 
suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep. 

In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of 
robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the 
heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils 
in the sea, in perils among false brethren; 

In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger 
and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. 

Besides those things that are without, that which cometh 
upon me daily, the care of all the churches. 

But it is the same joyful story of a glad 
triumphant life. It was Paul that was the founder 
of organic Christianity. He, more than any other 
man the world has ever known, I believe, succeeded 



34 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



in proving that the religious instinct is more funda- 
mental than race inheritance, class distinctions, or 
intellectual conceptions. He was the great liberty 
advocate in the story of monotheism; he was the high 
bridge over which Asiatic idealism passed and took 
possession of Europe, over which Hebrew prophecy 
passed into Christian institutions. His spirit, so 
loyal to truth as he saw it^ made him the first great 
cosmopolitan in religion. In his hands religion began 
to be universal in its objective manifestations as well 
as in its subjective principles. Paul fought and con- 
quered, suffered and triumphed, with only truth for 
an armor. 

I have thus put Jeremiah, the true forerunner of 
Jesus, and Paul, the greatest apostle of the Christ, 
before you that we may see standing between the two 
in truer perspective the great central witness of all 
history to the vitality and reality of my text. This 
''man of sorrow," this man born in a peasant home, 
the child of a carpenter, the consort of fishermen, the 
missionary of the roadside, the friend of sinners, 
cast out by the church, outlawed by the state, was 
poorer than the birds of the air and the foxes of the 
rocks ; for in life he had "no place whereon to lay his 
head," and in death his head bore a crown of thorns 
and rested on the upright of a cross to which were 
nailed his hands and feet. And still it is he, thus 
despised and defeated, that has been the visible wit- 
ness of God to man, the representative of the Father 
of souls to untold millions through nineteen centuries 



THE SUPREME QUEST 



35 



of mortal time. And today that loyal life illuminates 
parable and beatitude so that they shine in prison cell 
and in royal courts, rebuking kings on their thrones 
and upholding beggars in their rags. Yea, verily, 
truth is the only adequate armor in life! 

And so is it in death. Death is the least of the 
concerns of the truth-lover. Death has no terror to 
the truth-seeker. Aye, to him there is no death, only 
a deepening of the mystery that is ever present and 
that is ever being solved to the loyal. 

I know not where his islands lift 

Their fronded palms in air; 
I only know I cannot drift 

Beyond his love and care. 

This is the swan-song of the truth-lover. He is 
incurious as to the beyond, knowing that there is 
more of mystery and marvel, more of power and 
beauty, more of God and man, in this present 
moment than the human soul can fathom. Why, 
then, be so impatient for more; why so faithless 
because of the more astounding mystery? 

Let us seek this satisfying and abiding wealth; 
let us know the strength that cannot wane, and 
rejoice in the peace that cannot be taken away from 
us. Clad with this armor of truth, we can do with- 
out many things, and the few things that we have 
will go far. There is no plenty, even of the cheapest 
and the coarsest kind, without wisdom, and with wis- 
dom there is no poverty so dire but there will be a 
margin of time for thought, for love, for duty. 



36 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



Clad in this armor of truth, we are indeed equal 
to every passage in life or in death ; but without it we 
are indeed inadequate to the simplest duty, weak in 
the presence of the meanest temptation, peevish and 
selfish in the presence of the divinest revelations of 
love and hope and faith. 



AN APPEAL TO YOUTH 



RABBI BEX EZRA 



Grow old along with me! 

The best is yet to he, 
The last of life, for which the first was made: 

Our times are in his hand 

Who saith, "A whole I planned, 
Youth shows but half; trust God; see all nor be afraid. 

Then, welcome each rebuff 

That turns earth's smoothness rough. 
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! 

Be our joys three-parts pain! 

Strive, and hold cheap the strain; 
Learn, nor account the pang ; dare, never grudge the throe! 

For thence — a paradox 

Which comforts while it mocks, — 
Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail: 

What I aspired to be. 

And was not, comforts me: 
A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale. 

Therefore I summon age 

To grant youth's heritage. 
Life's struggle having so far reached its term: 

Thence shall I pass, approved 

A man, for aye removed 
From the developed brute; a God though in the germ. 

— Robert Browning 



Ill 



AN APPEAL TO YOUTH 

Grozv old along ivith me! 
The best is yet to he, 
The last of life, for u'hich the first zvas made. 

— From Browning's "Rabbi Ben Ezra" 

Many think that the genius of Robert Browning 
achieved its highest results in the poem entitled 
"Rabbi Ben Ezra." Be that as it may, this poem 
would certainly stand in almost any possible list of 
the ten great short poems in the English language. 
To my mind it stands next to Browning's "Saul" in 
religious power and ethical insight. It is a great lyric 
of the thoughtful soul, a hymn of religious philos- 
ophy. In it is compacted in matchless verse the 
mature wisdom of a mind trained by observation, 
sympathy, and study. So rich is it in thought that 
we forget the poetry and study it as philosophy; so 
rhythmic is it in its song that we forget its philosophy 
and delight in it as psalmody. 

"Rabbi Ben Ezra" was first published in 1864, 
when the poet was fifty-two years of age. But he 
had not forgotten the inspirations and aspirations of 
his youth. It is the mature man's version of the 
intoxicating vision of the boy as expressed in 
"Paracelsus," a poem published in 1835, when 
Robert Browning was twenty-three years of age. In 

39 



40 



L0\^ AXD LOYALTY 



"Rabbi Ben Ezra" experience not only justifies the 
high hopes and the apparently wild purposes of 
youth,, but enlarges upon these, presents with firmer 
grasp, states with more deliberate accent, and counts 
in still more rhythmic numbers that conception of the 
life of man which makes it an integral part of the 
life of God, and which not only rests upon the hopes 
of the mortal as a pledge of immortality, but makes of 
mortal experiences a part of the immortal life already 
begun. 

Into the mouth of the great mediaeval rabbi, 
Robert Browning put his philosophy of life — a philos- 
ophy that finds the great declarations of Israel's 
greatest prophets justified and verified in human 
history and by modern science. 

This poem cannot be adequately measured in a 
Sunday sermon. It is not to be mastered in a college 
classroom or disposed of as an exercise in English 
literature. It is to be interpreted only by experience. 
Its power and beauty work upon the soul only when 
that soul lends itself to profound emotion, is moved 
by high aspirations, or plowed by deep disappoint- 
ments. This poem reaches from the ecstasies of the 
heart to the perplexities of the head, and the anguish 
and humiliation of conscience. It challenges study 
in many directions. It baffles the classifications of 
Browning clubs and Browning interpreters ; you will 
find it now in the list of Jewish poems, again among 
religious poems, the poems of evolution, poems of 
philosophy, or the poems of faith. 



AN APPEAL TO YOUTH 



41 



For my present purpose, I shall dwell upon this 
poem as an appeal to youth — the word of a man in 
middle life to the young men and women who are 
following hard after him. The poet on the table- 
lands of human life, the serene maximum of which is 
termed middle age, looks back at the feverish life of 
boys and girls, sees the distraught years of youthful 
passion and ambition, and speaks to them in the 
accents of a sage, bidding them be of good cheer, and 
to push on, "see all nor be afraid." For he sees, 
what they may not surmise, that life is one continu- 
ous whole, toward which each event, emotion, and 
moment contribute — a whole that is planned by the 
Infinite Mind. 
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid. 

Our poet is no contemner of youth; he would not 
dampen its enthusiasm, or even stay its restlessness; 
he sees the hesitation, the distractions, the child-like 
— or, if you please, the childish — daintiness that 
knows not which rose to cull, which lily to leave, 
and, while admiring stars, finds neither Jove nor 
Mars quite satisfying. 

Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all. 

All this is a hopeful sign to our poet; instead of 
remonstrating, he "prizes the doubt" 

Low kinds exist without, 
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark. 

He would not have youth imitate the stolidity of the 
"crop-full bird" or the complacency of the "maw- 



42 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



crammed beast." This would indeed be a "poor vaunt 
of life," which is meant for some higher purpose 
than ''to feed on joy." His cry to the youth is rather : 

Rejoice we are allied 

To that which doth provide 
And not partake, effect and not receive! 

A spark disturbs our clod; 

Nearer we hold of God 
Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe. 

Then, welcome each rebuff 

That turns earth's smoothness rough, 
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go ! 

Be our joys three-parts pain ! 

Strive, and hold cheap the strain; 
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the 
throe I 

And, though pain end in pain, though the strain 
may not achieve, and the pang and the throe fail to 
realize, still he would say: "It is well, very well." 

Here we come upon one of the most fundamental 
principles of Browning. His superlative message to 
youth is that results are of minor importance, and 
that aim is not only the higher test, but the only true 
measure of life. In "Saul" he says : 

'Tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man 
Would do. 

In the "Inn Album" : 

Better have failed in the high aim, than vulgarly in the low 
aim succeed. 

He would say to young men and women: "The 



AN APPEAL TO YOUTH 



43 



things you are least capable of measuring are the 
alleged failures of life." His cry is: "Beware of 
alleged successes. Here more than anywhere else you 
need to take counsel, not of flesh and blood, but of 
the spirit within. Earthly failures may and do con- 
tribute to heavenly successes." 

All men strive, and who succeed? 

What hand and brain went ever paired? 
What heart alike conceived and dared? 
What act proved all its thought had been? 
What will but felt the fleshly screen? 

It is the low man that succeeds, the high man that 
fails. 

That low man goes on adding one to one, 

His hundred's soon hit : 
This high man, aiming at a million, 

Misses an unit. 

These quotations gleaned from other poems find 
their climax in the more splendid lines of Ben Ezra: 

What I aspired to be. 
And was not, comforts me : 
A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale. 

Not on the vulgar mass 

Called "work," must sentence pass, 
Things done, that took the eye and had the price; 

O'er which, from level stand. 

The low world laid its hand. 
Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice : 

But all, the world's coarse thumb 
And finger failed to plumb. 
So passed in making up the main account; 



44 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



All instincts immature, 

All purposes unsure, 
That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's 
amount. 

Thoughts hardly to be packed 

Into a narrow act. 
Fancies that broke through language and escaped; 

All I could never be. 

All, men ignored in me, 
This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped. 

To realize the good in this struggle, we must 
learn to value the "past profuse" that reveals 
power and lifts us now to the love that helps perfect 

us. The poet bids youth rejoice in its flesh, which is 
the 'Vose-mesh" of the soul: 
Let us not always say, 
"Spite of this flesh to-day 
I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!" 
As the bird wings and sings, 
Let us cry, "All good things 
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps 
soul !" 

It is by help of the body, not in spite of the body, 
that we find 

A man, for aye removed 
From the developed brute; a God though in the germ. 

Thus it is that through the first twenty-five 
stanzas of the poem old age vindicates youth, justi- 
fies its restlessness, rejoices in its passions, sees it 
enriched by its inheritance and enthroned in nature, 
the soul set in flesh as the diamond is set in gold. 
This because it is a preparation for the next thing. 



AN APPEAL TO YOUTH 



45 



As it was better, youth 

Should strive, through acts uncouth, 
Toward making, than repose on aught found made ! 

So, better, age, exempt 

From strife, should know, than tempt 
Further. Thou waitedst age : wait death nor be afraid. 

All this leads up to the climax of the poem, which 
borrows its figure from Isaiah, Paul, and the pagan 
poet Omar Khayyam. Here the poet sees human 
life shaped by the divine hand as the potter shapes 
the clay on the flying wheel. Mid the ''dance 
of plastic circumstance" the soul receives its bent, is 
tried, turned, impressed, decorated, not for the sake 
of the decoration or the shape, but for the higher 
uses of the cup in the ^Master's hand to slake the 
thirst of infinite being when no longer earth's wheel 
is needed. Then youth reaches its divinest prayer as 
it yields itself to the final test in the closing words of 
our poem: 

So, take and use Thy work : 

Amend what flaws may lurk. 
What strain of the stuff, what warpings past the aim ! 

My times be in Thy hand ! 

Perfect the cup as planned ! 
Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same! 

So much for an introduction to the Browning 
sermon on the text: 

Grow old along with me ! 
The best is yet to be. 

The appeal to youth is found in the invitation to 
accept the proffered task; not with stoic resignation, 



46 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



but with eager enthusiasm; not with calculating 
resignation, but with that "fierce energy" in which 
Paracelsus rejoiced as the adequate warrant for the 
venturesome soul that dares plunge like the diver in 
his search for pearls. The prize is well worth the 
adventure. 

Perhaps I should do well to stop here. Certainly 
I shall do ill if I divert your minds from the match- 
less sermon which Robert Browning put into the 
mouth of the great Jewish sage, Rabbi Ben Ezra, 
who was born in Toledo, Spain, about the year 1090 
A. D., and who died after having been for some 
seventy-eight years a wanderer on the face of the 
earth, as the wiser men of those days had to be. He 
won for himself permanent fame as philosopher, 
astronomer, physician, and poet. Contemporary 
scholars honored him, and he is described in the old 
records as having ''indefatigable ardor and industry 
in the pursuit of knowledge." But he was driven 
with his co-religionists from his native land, which, 
alas, has been so blighted by a passion for persecu- 
tion. He drained the cup of failure to its dregs. His 
lack of ''success," as the word goes, was so monu- 
mental that he said: "The stars are against me. If 
I sold shrouds, none would die; if candles were my 
wares, the sun would not set until the day of my 
death." He wrote of himself : "As a withered leaf, 
I roved far away from my native land of Spain and 
went to Rome with a troubled soul." 

Recent students discover evidence that Robert 



AN APPEAL TO YOUTH 



47 



Browning found his own wisdom strikingly phrased 
in the wise words of this hunted Jew, who wrote out 
of these humiHating failures: "Man is not a bird or 
beast to find joy solely in feasting." The divine 
spark within us is nearer to God than are the recipi- 
ents of his inferior gifts. So, our rebuffs are stings 
to urge us on, our strivings are a measure of ulti- 
mate success; aspiration, not achievement, divides 
us from the brute. Says a modern biographer: 
''While this remarkable man was running from east 
to west and from north to south, his mind remained 
firm as to principles he had once for all accepted as 
true; his advocacy of freedom, his views concerning 
angels, the immortality of the soul, he held to the 
end." It was his exile, we are told, that led him to 
write his books, which were so great that his over- 
shadowing contemporary, Maimonides, who has 
been called "the light of the Middle Ages," recom- 
mended them to his son as the exclusive object of his 
study for some time. 

But, without changing or adding to the sermon 
of "Ben Ezra," let us seek for an interpretation in 
the humbler sources of our own lives. 

First, I would emphasize the appeal to youth for 
seriousness. Too long has youth been regarded as 
only the playtime of life; too often has life been 
cheapened by youth's mistaking jocularity for joy, 
hilarity for pleasure, flippancy for happiness. Oh, 
the years of youth are too few, too precious, to be 
wasted in mere preparation for usefulness farther 



48 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



along. My youthful friends, the vrorld needs today 
your young years; great causes languish for your 
youthful support. Why withhold your service 
until war's alarms are sounded? When awful bat- 
tle dangers are pending and physical prowess is in 
demand, then the nation ever turns to its young men, 
and they promptly respond. When the "long roll" 
is beaten, boys become manly and promptly "rally 
around the flag." Are these the only things worthy 
your enthusiasm? Can boys be transformed only on 
the lower levels of life, such as are symbolized by 
the bayonet and the bullet? Are our girls' ser\'ices 
available to the state and the church only when there 
is lint to be scrape and bandages are to be rolled? I 
for one will not believe it. Today you are needed, 
young men and young women, in the army corps of 
peace ; your service is called for in the battle for purity, 
for honesty, and for virtue. And, in pleading for 
this seriousness, I plead for your joy; nay, for some- 
thing more than joy — for peace, serenity, aye, blessed- 
ness — a word which finds its picturesque quality 
in the Welsh of my mother-tongue in gn'ynfyd, 
the "white world," the "spotless land," the 
land which becomes the radiant life. In pleading 
for seriousness, I plead for your happiness even more 
than for your usefulness. 

Among the permanent treasures in American 
song are the volumes from the pen of Edith 
Thomas, whose guileless spirit has made her the 
interpreter of flowers and birds. Two of these are 



AN APPEAL TO YOUTH 



49 



entitled In Sunshineland and Fair Shadowland. 
The American people will not spare either of these 
volumes, for both contain exquisite melodies, dainty 
conceits, faultless rhythm. But the student of these 
poems will promptly find that the songs of Shadow- 
land have a charm which the carols of Sunshineland 
miss. Edith Thomas is no unworthy interpreter of 
Browning, and I will let her echo the wisdom of 
Rabbi Ben Ezra. Like him, she rejoiced in youth 
and its hilarity, but with him she recognized the last- 
ing inspirations in the passing joys of youth. She 
says : 

Vex not that impassioned soul 
Whereupon all issues roll, 
Fraught with joy or fraught with woe, 
That our common lot may know. 
Nay, but as thou canst, assuage 
The burden of his heritage; 
For there live within his breast 
Memory, foresight, all unrest, 
Whether pain or pleasure hold 
The heart's recesses manifold. 

Again, in a poem entitled ''The Domino," she 
describes the soul as "a pilgrim clothed in hodden 
gray," going forth in quest of love. He encounters 
in succession Indifference, Pride, and Anger, and 
on short acquaintance each calls forth the exclama- 
tion: ''You look like love." Yet none of them 
satisfies. But at the last — 

I met a fugitive distraught, undone, 

Who sometimes stayed for dread, and sometimes run. 



50 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



Though lord of all that sweetest bards have sung, 
Not one poor word supplied his halting tongue, 
But all his soul he lavished in a sigh. 
"So, you are love!" quoth L 

This is the final exclamation of the soul. It is the 
halting silence, the brooding life, that finds love. 

My next appeal to youth is an appeal for democ- 
racy. Begin early to make common cause with all 
your kind. The greatest menace to your happiness 
today and your usefulness tomorrow is the menace 
of aristocracy. I mean the tendency to take a part 
for the whole, to be lured by the glamor of lines; 
a preference for a superficial excellency; a belief, not 
only in the legitimacy, but in the permanency, of the 
passing distinctions of society. Unguided youth falls 
an easy victim to sectionalism, partisanship, to club 
and society politics. It is ''our set" that frequently 
dominates the youthful ambition. 

Some Greek-letter-society enthusiasm or class 
politics too often consumes the devotion meant for 
diviner ends, and social circle or geographical center 
asks and receives that fidelity and enthusiasm, that 
service and support, which belong to something 
broader and nobler, something more holy, than the 
cliques and classes of youthful preferences. Remem- 
ber that all political policies and denominational 
creeds fade as you approach the highlands of the 
spirit. Again, Edith Thomas, in the spirit of Rabbi 
Ben Ezra, has sung the lesson of age to youth: 



AN APPEAL TO YOUTH 



51 



Listen, thou child I used to be ! 

I know what thou didst fret to know — 
Knowledge thou couldst not lure to thee, 

Whatever bribe thou wouldst bestow, 
That knowledge but a way-mark plants 
Along the road of ignorance. 



Listen, thou child I used to be ! 

My soul to wrath 'gainst wrong is used, 
Where thou wast fed with vanity. 

The doer and the deed confused. 
Right wrath the deed stabs soon or late, 
The doer spares, his deed to hate. 

Listen, thou child I used to be ! 

Unproud I move, and yet unbowed, 
Where thou wast fed with vanity. 

Thy chiefest pride — thou wast not proud ! 
True lowliness forgets its state. 
And equal trains with small or great. 

Listen, thou child I used to be ! 

I am what thy dream-wandering sense 
Did shape, and thy fresh will decree, 

Yet all with subtle difference : 
Where heaven's arc did seem to end. 
Still on and on fair fields extend. 

The next appeal of age to youth, as it comes to 
me, is that you work on long lines, taking to heart 
the wisdom of the old Greek, which Longfellow 
translated into your favorite song: 

Art is long and time is fleeting. 

When in 1882 I visited my birthplace, the wisest 
kinsman I found in that Welsh countryside was a 



52 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



young cousin who had leased for ninety-nine years a 
grim, rocky old hill, a barren blufY, on which he was 
setting out young spruce trees not waist-high. He cal- 
culated that in thirty years the spruce would yield a 
few poles to the timber market, and that fifty years 
hence they would prove a modest fortune to the 
owner thereof. Intelligent agriculture is reclaim- 
ing the wasted and now non-productive lands of Mis- 
sissippi and Alabama by setting out extensive planta- 
tions of pecan trees, which will begin to yield a prof- 
itable harvest eighteen or twenty years hence. 
Invest your lives, oh, young men and young women, 
on long lines! Heed the example of the pecan 
farmers; imitate the adventure of my Welsh cousin 
and plant spruce trees that fifty years hence will 
begin to bless the world; plant that which will make 
your children's children rich; so invest your youth 
that your triumphs may be chanted by the winds 
moaning in tall tops of trees whose roots will find 
your fertilizing ashes in deep graves. Believe in the 
future ; let no short-sighted cynicism dampen your con- 
fidence in the permanence of this old earth of ours, 
in the unrendered possibilities of the human nature 
which you now represent for a while on earth, and 
for the improvement of which you are now trustee. 
An account of your stewardship you must render to 
a future that will despise your faithlessness or honor 
your fidelity. Lose no time in asking who will culti- 
vate the trees when you are dead. Shame on the mis- 
giving that plants sunflowers to spring forth, give 



AN APPEAL TO YOUTH 



53 



their fruit, and die in a season, rather than pine 
trees whose virgin boughs will be yet untouched with 
seed-cones when you are grown gray. 

Work on long lines, oh, young man and young 
woman! Believe in the future. Dare to work for 
it. You must plan big things, if ever you hope to 
achieve small things. The French poet Beranger 
gave a parable of the successful life in a poem 
entitled "Grand Plans," which has been translated 
by Miss Thomas. In this parable the poet started 
out in youth to write an epic. Gradually, as life 
advanced, the epic was abridged to a tragedy, the 
tragedy gave way to the easier ode, the ode dwindled 
to a song, the song was abridged to a quatrain. But 
the quatrain was achieved. Four lines of poetry 
were realized because an epic was aimed at. 

Let the young, then, lend themselves to great 
schemes — not the big things that pass, but the long 
things that last. Beware how you sell life cheap. 
Beware lest you cheat the present by discounting the 
future. Have faith that tomorrow will at least be 
equal to your best today, and that the present cannot 
conceive a nobility which the future will not appre- 
ciate, or lay the foundations of a cathedral so 
worthy that those who come after will not know how 
to rear the superstructure. Work on long lines. 
Have at least as much faith in the future as had the 
old pagan astronomer poet of Persia, Omar Khay- 
yam, when he wrote : 



54 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press, 
End in what All begins and ends in — Yes; 

Think then you are To-day what Yesterday 
You were — Tomorrow you shall not be less. 

So when that Angel of the darker Drink 
At last shall find you by the river-brink, 
And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul 
Forth to your Lips to quaff — you shall not shrink. 



When you and I behind the Veil are past. 

Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last, 

Which of our Coming and Departure heeds 
As the Sea's self should heed a pebble-cast. 

Lastly, age invites you to the high task of peace- 
making. We are entering upon a reconciling cen- 
tury. Religion looks to you for a harmonizing 
ministry. In this task more than anywhere else will 
be found your installation into the priesthood of the 
gwynfa, the white lands, the beautific paradise over 
which shall float the unstained banners of peace, the 
white flag of harmony. 

Let the flag of whatever country or party or sect 
you choose float over you, but let it always be rimmed 
with white, witnessing to the fact that we have had 
fighting enough. The world is weary of war. The 
patriotism that launches battleships with boom of 
cannon and blare of trumpet is yet to be followed by 
the nobler patriotism that with higher psalm, nobler 
music, and louder acclaim will scuttle the same battle- 
ships, sending them to their eternal rest in the 
depths of the deepest sea. 



AN APPEAL TO YOUTH 



55 



In religion the cry is reconciliation, not conquest. 
My young- friends, seek the underlying harmonies of 
love and the overarching rainbow of hope, rather 
than the surface distinctions of creeds and of sects. 
Work for peace in religion. 

Sociology is but the scholar's word for unity, 
economic harmony, social co-operation. It is 
mutuality opposed to competition. It is wealth in the 
plural number, which is commonwealth. No man is 
wealthy today, no man can reap the benefits of wealth 
today, who puts his possessive case in the first person 
singular and says "mine;" nay, who even dares to 
think "mine" and believe "mine" rather than "ours'' 
"ours," and still more, "OURS !" 

The venerable Bede, the old English bishop of 
the seventh century, tells in his chronicles that, 
when a certain priest was sent to Kent to fetch 
King Edwin's daughter to be married to King Oswin, 
he so planned his journey as to return with the lady 
by water; whereupon the bishop got him a pot of oil 
to cast into the sea, if he should meet with a tempest. 
This he did when the tempest came, and the sea was 
calmed. Later science has demonstrated as possible 
what was long supposed to be a monkish legend. At 
the Folkstone Ledge in England, and perhaps else- 
where, permanent machinery has been set up in the 
region of the most dangerous waters for the distri- 
bution of oil on turbulent waves in moments of dire 
extremity. 

Wise old bishop of Kent! You have furnished 



LOVE AXD LOYALTY 



the parable, precept, and example to the young men 
and women of today. Oh. my young friends, what 
we need is a spiritual equivalent to this old bishop's 
cruise of oil — something that will break the chop- 
ping waves of antagonism; something that will dis- 
arm the threatening breakers of rivalry; something 
that will curb the angry surf of selfishness and make 
it rhythmical with life-saving love, and not boisterous 
to the destruction of the human voyagers. Electric 
lights in the harbor of New York have robbed Hell- 
gate of its last terrors. Oil and light, patience and 
wisdom, must help you in your ministry of reconcilia- 
tion. 

With these helps go forth, my young friends, 
to prove that — 

The best is yet to be, 
The last of life, for which the first was made. 



IDEALS 



LONGING 



Of all the myriad moods of mind 

That through the soul come thronging. 
Which one was e'er so dear, so kind, 

So beautiful as Longing? 
The thing we long for, that we are 

For one transcendent moment. 
Before the Present poor and hare 

Can make its sneering comment. 

Still, through our paltry stir'' and strife. 

Glows down the wished Ideal, 
And Longing moulds in clay what Life 

Carves in the marble Real; 
To let the new life in, we know. 

Desire must ope the portal; — 
Perhaps the longing to be so 

Helps make the soul immortal. 

Longing is God's fresh heavenward will 

With our poor earthward striving; 
We quench it that we may be still 

Content with merely living; 
But, would we learn that heart's full scope 

Which we are hourly wronging, 
Our lives must climb from hope to hope 

And realize our longing. 

Ah! let us hope that to our praise 

Good God not only reckons 
The moments when we tread his ways. 

But when the spirit beckons, — 
That some slight good is also wrought 

Beyond self-satisfaction, 
When we are simply good in thought, 

Howe'er we fail in action. 

— ^James Russell Lowell 



IV 



IDEALS 

God hides some ideal in every human breast. — Robert Collyer 

Yes, God does hide some ideal in every human 
breast, else it would cease to be human. I will not 
say that an ideal is the distinctive possession of man, 
that the gift of vision, the inspiration of dreams, 
the power to see and the purpose to pursue something 
outside of present life and beyond present enjoy- 
ment, is the peculiar characteristic of human nature 
as distinguished from what we sometimes call animal 
nature; for I believe that this power of longing, this 
law of pursuit, this pressure from within toward a 
good that is yet without, is, in some sweet and 
high fashion, the gift of dog and horse, of bird and 
worm; and, back of that, could we have eyes to see 
forces as well as forms, and minds to understand the 
mysteries we call ''attraction" and "gravitation," I 
think we should see that there is that in crystal that 
mellows into a cell, that the cell breaks into other 
cells, and that these in turn group themselves into 
companionships, organize themselves into co-opera- 
tive relations, conspire to become grass and worm, 
and, Emerson tells us — 

The poor grass shall plot and plan 

What it will do when it is man; 

And striving to be man, the worm 

Mounts through all the spires of form. 

59 



6o 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



I may not explain, perhaps no man can under- 
stand, what it is in the sun that woos the little tender 
shoot through the prison walls of the acorn down in 
the dark, damp earth up into the light, or what it is 
in the acorn that persistently pushes through the 
shell and blindly gropes through the dark toward that 
light; but it is something that already means the oak, 
the mighty tree with great branches and stalwart 
trunk. In summertime it becomes a leafy city, where 
birds and squirrels, butterflies, insects, and worms 
innumerable, find a happy home. In wintertime it 
defies the storms, wearing undaunted its glistening 
coat of ice and trimmings of icicle, as the old knights 
carried helmet, shield, and spear; carrying its snow 
plumage as proudly and defiantly as ever "Henry of 
Navarre" wore his white plume on his battlefields. 
There must be an ideal in the heart of the acorn, else 
there would be no oak; there must be an ideal in the 
heart of the oak, else there would be no more acorns; 
and the ideal of the oak tree is no longer another oak 
tree, but an oak forest, a mountainside of green, an 
inhabited valley, and sheltered homes for boys and 
girls, ships for human commerce, schools, libraries, 
temples for the development of human souls. 

The ideal that God plants in every human breast 
is a part of that great creative law which scholars 
call "evolution;" it is that something which made 
stars out of star-dust and grouped them into systems, 
the something which gave suns their habitations and 



IDEALS 



6i 



swung the planets into fixed pathways, from which 
they may not stray. 

This, then, is our first lesson about the ideal, 
that it is not some special gift to a few good people, 
an exceptional grace granted to "nice folks," but the 
necessity of life everywhere, the gift of all beings, an 
endowment of every human soul because it has begun 
to be, away back and below the poorest and weakest 
human soul. It is the law of the ideal that covers the 
stagnant water with life, that fills the mud with eggs 
and the very air we breathe with germs. 

A second lesson : All ideals are good for some- 
thing. Most of the microbes in the air are friendly 
to man as he is today; most of the germs in the mud 
are valuable; they are all friendly to man as he 
ought to be; all of them win or drive as far as they 
may life into greater fife. The ideal is not a grim 
necessity, but the joyful song of the universe, and this 
song is the chorus of all life. Well does Emerson 
tell us: 

'Tis not in the high stars alone, 
Nor in the cups of budding flowers, 

Nor in the redbreast's mellow tone, 
Nor in the bow that smiles in showers, 

But in the mud and scum of things 

There alway, alway something sings. 

Now for a third lesson of the ideal. It does not 
follow, because all ideals are good, that one ideal is 
as good as another. If heat and moisture, making 
common cause with the germ, are able to change 



62 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



earth, air, and water into life-stuff, which your books 
call ''protoplasm," and then again to transform this 
life-stuff into life, which rises, now into stem, anon 
into stamens and pistils, and at last into fruit, now 
green, now yellow, now red, now bitter, now sweet, 
and at last nourishing, it does not follow that all the 
boy and girl have to do is to lie in the sun and let the 
shade and shine work upon them, lending themselves 
simply to the eating and the drinking that nature 
prompts them to, that they may be changed into what 
is fair and good. It does not follow, because the 
worm has fulfilled its duty when it has woven its 
cocoon and gone to sleep to wait for its wings, that 
the boy and girl have nothing to do but yield to the 
law of their instincts and their passions, and wait 
for an angel, a winged thing of beauty and of life, 
to spring therefrom. 

Out of every realized ideal there must be born a 
new ideal. Every added power brings added respon- 
sibility. God's law of the ideal is like the ladder in 
Jacob's dream, something upon which beings may 
climb from earth toward heaven. And they may 
also go the other way. If men may grow up into 
angelic life, angels may grow down into bestial life. 
The butterfly came from the grub; now it has wings 
and must use them, it can lead the life of the grub no 
longer. The frog came from the tadpole, but the 
frog is not a thing of gills; it is an air-breather, and 
it must use its lungs. 

There comes a place on the ladder of life when 



IDEALS 



63 



fins give way to paws, and the living must learn to 
creep. There comes a place on the ladder of life when 
paws give way to feet, and the living must learn to 
walk. There comes a place on the ladder of life 
when feet change to wings, and the living must learn 
to fly. There comes a place on the ladder of life 
when intellect has a home in the brain, and the living 
must learn to think. There comes a place on the lad- 
der of Hfe when the soul looks away from self, sees 
that which is fair as distinguished from that which is 
foul, knows the difference between right and wrong, 
and life must learn to love, to choose, to hate the 
wrong, to love the true, and to serve the right, to live 
when living serves and to die when death is the 
higher service. 

This brings us to our fourth lesson and our first 
great perplexity. God not only "hides some ideal in 
every human soul," but many ideals are there imbed- 
ded; and, within limits, it is for the human soul, 
however tattered and battered it may be, to choose its 
ideals. 

The poorest man is farther along than the highest 
brute. The Hottentot is higher than the ape; the 
savage is farther along than the tiger; the saddest 
tramp is farther along the road, and has graver 
responsibilities, and higher possibilities, than the 
noblest of dogs, although the latter may be more lov- 
able and loving than the former, because the one is a 
degenerate man and the other a regenerate wolf. Hot- 
tentot, savage, and tramp have come to speech and voice, 



64 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



to hand and thumb. Given these, we have nature's 
highest achievement in mechanism. These represent 
the high-bridge which carried Hfe out of the material 
into the spiritual, out of the realm of things into the 
realm of ideas, where soul begins to rule, intellect 
becomes dominant, and the kingdom of love begins to 
be. The puniest babe comes into the world with a 
bundle of ideals woven into his nerves, hid away in 
his brain like eggs in a nest, waiting to be hatched. 
Will that babe be governed by the ideals of the worm, 
the reptile, the wild beast, the bird, the savage, or the 
saint? All of them are found in his ancestral line; 
their names are engraved on his pedigree; he has an 
inheritance from each of them. 

Let us face the highest task ever set before a 
boy or girl — the task of choosing an ideal. What 
must the boy work for? What is the model accord- 
ing to which the girl may plan her life? 

Here are three rules that may help: 

I. An ideal should be sufficiently far away to 
require a whole lifetime to pursue it. A dog is old at 
eight years; the child at that age has but begun to 
live. The horse is decrepit at twenty-one; the youth 
is just entering his majority. The savage is mature 
at fourteen, and stops growing before he is 
yet twenty; but the child of the civilized man is in 
college at that age; he is a student at thirty, he is 
still growing at fifty. In choosing an ideal, then, 
let it be one that will give a long perspective to your 
task; let it be far enough away and high enough up 



IDEALS 



65 



to keep you at it, so that, when you reach the eighty- 
five years of Sir Isaac Newton, you may reahze the 
wisdom of his confession : ''I have picked up but a 
few pebbles on the infinite beach of truth." You will 
then but have written the preface to the book of an 
endless life, you will but have begun the career of an 
endless quest of an ideal still luring you farther on. 

I remember a story of an ignorant sailor to whom 
the captain intrusted the tiller of the boat on a clear, 
starlight night, while he went below for a little rest. 
Jack was told to keep the prow ever pointing toward a 
certain star. This he did until he dozed at his post. 
The ship veered from her course, and Jack awoke to 
find his star shining brightly over the stern of the 
boat, whereupon he awoke the captain and asked him 
for another star, because he had sailed past the one 
first given him. Let the star of your ideal be such as 
you cannot overtake and can never leave behind. 

2. You should choose the ideal that will enlist all 
your faculties, and thus ever enlarge the boundaries 
of your humanity. Alas for the boy whose ideals 
will make of him chiefly a counting-machine, 
a money-maker, a digger among the dictionaries, a 
slave of the violin, the brush, or the chisel, or the 
captain of a football team. Hurrah for the boy who 
knows the value of these things and has achieved 
some degree of competency in each of these realms, 
but still has large sympathies and energies to spare. 
Beware of the ideal that paralyzes the sinews of 
body or mind, leading to aborted organs, like the legs 



66 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



which the snake once possibly had, but has lost from 
want of use. 

3. Lastly, let your ideal be one that will satisfy 
the highest. Flee the business that offends the con- 
science; avoid the society that leaves a "bad taste in 
the mouth," that makes you ashamed of yourself. 
Beware of that ideal that crucifies your noblest aspir- 
ations, your gentlest emotions, your tenderest feeling. 
George Eliot has said: 'That religion cannot save 
sinners that does not satisfy saints." That ideal is 
inadequate which does not represent the best there is 
in you, which does not woo you to the highest, which 
is not sufficiently noble to compel every appetite and 
every passion in your nature, every faculty of the 
mind and every muscle of the body, to take their 
place as servants of the best, helpers of the highest. 

If these three rules are safe rules, you need never 
be afraid of following too high an ideal. Never be 
brow-beaten by the selfish philosopher who would 
sneer at the "idealist" or intimidate you into some 
sordid standards of "success," or the narrow measure 
of life, because it is called "practical." If you are to 
have an ideal that will last a lifetime and hold good 
for eternity, that will enlist all your powers and 
give you a spherical soul, moving like the stars in a 
God-given orbit; if you are to have an ideal that will 
satisfy all the longings of your nature, it must be 
one that cannot be blurred by defeat or distorted by 
popularity, one that will make you glad to be alone 



IDEALS 



67 



with it if need be, or to die for it when the time comes 
for you best to serve it in that way. 

Shall we look for illustrations? History is replete 
with ideals. In youth, at least, embodied ideals are 
most inspiring. Herein lie the best uses of history, 
and the purest gold in literature. 

Boys, what names in history suggest the ideal I 
have tried to outline? Let us recall some of them. 
You may think of Moses, the favored young man at 
the king's court, who stood by his countryman when he 
was wronged by his Egyptian master, who left the 
royal palace that he might lead a band of runaway 
slaves through a wilderness and become to them law- 
giver and leader; of Daniel, the incorruptible youth, 
who held to his simple diet of beans at royal tables, 
who would not bend his knee to a false god, who 
preferred to live with lions rather than with an out- 
raged conscience; of Socrates, the homely Athenian, 
who taught young men their ignorance; and of Bud- 
dha, the Indian prince, who abandoned the prospect 
of a throne and became a beggar and a hermit that 
perchance he might find the way of helpfulness and 
learn how to make mankind more pitiful, men and 
women more gentle. 

And if we come down into modern times, we find 
Kossuth, Garibaldi, Gladstone, and Lincoln — ideals 
worthy to be patterned after because they believed 
in freedom for all and stood up against tyranny. 

Girls, have you found your ideal of womanhood? 
Is it Elizabeth Barrett Browning, or George Eliot, 



68 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



who actualized in their lives their heroines of purity 
and wisdom, and illustrated the lessons of charity 
and helpfulness that enriched their books? Will 
you pattern after Elizabeth Fry, Florence Nightin- 
gale, or Dorothea Dix, who gave their lives for the 
unfortunate? Or will you think of Harriet Beecher 
Stowe, who accomplished great results in the face of 
great difficulties and great opposition? 

Boys and girls, be not ashamed to confess your 
admiration for such as these. Let no one dis- 
courage you by saying that they are too beautiful for 
you to pattern after, too great for you to follow. 
But,if they seem too far away, you may look to find the 
ideal of your life in lesser souls, reflected in humbler 
ways. Wherever you find a life that is marked by 
persistency, loyalty, nobility, sacredly put that life 
into the cabinet that holds your ideals. Wherever 
you find a woman's hand that is strong and loving, or 
a man's hand that is loving and strong; wherever you 
find a youth that is gentle as well as brave, a maiden 
that is pure as well as blithe, hold them aloft as 
ideals, remembering always that embodied nobility 
is the more potent. 

The wisdom of my text is best understood when 
reflected in the radiant face haloed with the white 
hair of him who wrote it. The best analysis of my 
text is found in the story of the life of that York- 
shire lad who read his books while blowing the bel- 
lows as a blacksmith's apprentice, and thought out 
the sermons which he preached on the Yorkshire cir- 



IDEALS 69 

cuit while shoeing horses ; who came to America, and 
worked eight years at the anvil making hammers in 
Philadelphia, reading the Encyclopedia Britannica 
through in the evenings of those years; who after- 
wards came to Chicago to be its patriot-preacher in 
the dark days of treason and war, and its consolation 
and inspiration when four or five square miles of 
Chicago were in ashes; and who is still, as he has 
been for many years, a benignant power in the hurried 
life of New York City. 

But the ideal of these ideals, the pattern after 
which most of these men and women I have men- 
tioned shaped their lives, stands out very clearly 
before you, my dear boys and girls. There is no 
sweeter name in all your textbooks than the name of 
Jesus; there is no pattern more available, more tang- 
ible, more persistent, in the curriculum of high school 
or college, than the personality of the Nazarene car- 
penter, the sweet and yet strong man who took babes 
in his arms and blessed them, but who defied kings on 
their thrones and purged the temple of thieves and 
speculators with a whip of small cords ; the man who 
could match the beatitudes with a benignant presence 
that soothed the maniac, reclaimed the Magdalene, 
and glorified the cross. Here is an ideal that is tang- 
ible, objective, and at the same time satisfactory to 
the inward aspirations of the noblest. 

This is why I think it worth while to seek more 
and more intimate acquaintance with the life which 
began in a manger and ended on a cross; this is why 



70 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



I would have you seek citizenship in that spiritual 
movement which, spite of form and dogma, now by 
help of ritual and again in spite of it, with priest or 
without priest, has stretched through nineteen cen- 
turies of mortal time — the movement which men call 
Christianity. 

But now, as when Jesus was living, there is 
danger in names. Now as then, many will confess 
him in words who deny him in deeds. Altars are 
desecrated, now as then, by formality and dogmatism. 
Many and many times down through the centuries 
those who have been most like him in spirit have had 
to refuse the so-called Christian formulas and forms. 
This is why I commend to you no slavish adherence 
to the letter, no outward conformity that does not 
strengthen the inward spirit ; but I do commend to 
you the pursuit of the ideal that still seems to find its 
best literary statement in the Sermon on the Blount 
and the parables of the New Testament, and its high- 
est historical embodiment in that life which combined 
clear thought with consistent action, and independ- 
ence of spirit with social dependence and human 
co-operation to a transcendent degree. 

How is this ideal to be pursued? How is the 
religious life, thus defined, to be followed? How 
can you and I be "Christian" as interpreted by the 
Beatitudes and the Golden Rule, and reflected in the 
Lord's Prayer and the parable of the Good Samari- 
tan? This is the greatest question: and herein lies 
the great, sweet, high and yet humble mystery of the 



IDEALS 



71 



ideal, without which you cannot take a step in 
advance, but which, with all our knowledge and all 
our time, we can never reach. 

In answering this question of ''How," lies the 
value of the sermon, the use of worship, the meaning 
of the church. 

After all our search, perhaps we shall find no 
better study of the ''How" than in a quaint old story 
that is one of the deathless treasures in English litera- 
ture. It was written over two hundred years ago. 
Your grandfathers and grandmothers, I fear, were 
better acquainted with it than you are. But it is a 
story which you will learn to appreciate more 
and more as you advance in culture as well as in 
the life of conscience. You may turn away from it 
as a textbook in theology and think it old fashioned 
as a handbook of devotion ; but, as a student, you will 
have to come back to it after awhile as to one of the 
perennial springs of literature; and as such you will 
find it all the more valuable as a helper in the pursuit 
of the ideal. It becomes all the more valuable to our 
purpose when we learn that it was written by one 
who was an itinerant tinker and spent nearly twelve 
years of his life in jail, during which time he wrote 
most of the book. 

John Bunyan has written in allegory the story of 
every pilgrim who travels from the "City of Destruc- 
tion" toward the "Celestial City." Each of us, like 
"Christian" in the story, must escape from the town 
of "Carnal-Policy;" we must carry our burden of 



72 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



sins through the ''Slough of Despond" toward the 
"Wicket Gate." We must, Hke him, avoid the ''Wide 
and Crooked Way," must cHmb the "Hill of Diffi- 
culty," though the easier paths to the land of "Vain- 
glory" and the "Way of Danger" invite us on either 
side. The "Palace Beautiful" will lure us, but we 
must not bide there. The "Valley of Humiliation" 
awaits us. The "Vanity Fair" of the world, with its 
"Shams" and "Jugglers," its "Titles," its "Games," 
its "Scandals" and "Preferments," will tempt us. 
The "Hill of Lucre" is on our way, and "Doubting 
Castle" on the "Hill of Error" will seek to entrap 
us; but we are pilgrims, and must push onward 
toward the "Delectable Mountain," on through the 
"Enchanted Ground," in which we must not sleep, 
and still on through Beulah Land on the very borders 
of Heaven; and even there we shall find tempting 
ways that lead to the "Gates of Hell." Every pil- 
grim on this road will meet "Sir Obstinate" and "Mr. 
Pliable," "Mr. Worldly- Wiseman," "Mr. Legality," 
and "Mr. Civility," who will try to lure him from 
his high quest, to retard him on his long journey. "Mr. 
Self-Presumption," "Mr. Hypocrisy," and "Mr. Timor- 
ous" will offer their practical suggestions. "Apol- 
lyon," the horrible monster, stands in the way between 
you and your ideals, and you must fight him as 
"Christian" did. The "Lust of the Flesh," the 
"Lust of the Eyes," and the "Pride of Life" are real 
tempters on the pilgrim road to the Celestial King- 
dom. 



IDEALS 



73 



Bunyan has personified ''Shame," ''Discontent," 
"Pride," "Arrogancy," "Self-Conceit," and "Worldly 
Glory," as men who meet the pilgrim to discourage 
and divert him. "Mr. Talkative," the son of "Say- 
Well," and "Lord Hate-Good" try to arrest his atten- 
tion. "Mr. Envy," "Mr. Superstition," and "Mr. 
Pick-Thank" testify against him. "Sir Having- 
Greedy," "Lord Luxurious," "Lord Carnal-Delight," 
and other friends of "Beelzebub" waylay him and 
try him before a jury of their peers, among whom 
are "Mr. Liar," "Mr. Enmity," "Mr. Hate-Light," 
"Mr. Love-Lust," and the rest of them. "Lord 
Turn-About," "Lord Time-Server," "Mr. Smooth- 
Man," "Mr. Facing-Both-Ways," "Mr. Money- 
Love," and "Mr. Vain-Confidence" are among the 
men whom the pilgrim encounters, each with his 
specious argument, each pleading the logic of expedi- 
ency, popularity, and prosperity. But through the 
companionship of "Mr. Hope" and "Mr. Great- 
Grace," and the help of "Mr. Faithful," who fell by 
the way fighting for his liberty and his conscience, he 
is able to parry the arguments of "Faint-Heart," 
"Mistrust," and all the rest. He finds timely help in 
"Mr. Knowledge," "Mr. Experience," and "Mr. Sin- 
cerity," the shepherds on the "Delectable Mountain." 
And so he pushes on until at last he finds himself 
separated only by the river, the river we must all 
cross, from the Celestial City. 

John Bunyan's creed is all too grim for our day, 
but his humanity was clean and strong, and his 



74 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



genius enabled him to give us this wonderful allegory 
of the noble life which he called the Christian life. 
You may call it what you please, but it was the fight 
against lust and selfishness in the interest of purity 
and peace. It was the passage out of meanness into 
love; aye, let us use the old words, for you know 
what they mean : it was the journey away from hell 
toward heaven; it was the battle against sin, a strug- 
gle with devils many; it was the quest of the ideal — 
that ideal some fragment of which, as Robert Colly er 
assures us, is hidden in every human breast. 

The pilgrim's road is not a solitary one. It is 
peopled thick with enemies to the good, and so also 
is it populous with the friends of the higher life. 
You and I can never make the passage to the *'Celes- 
tial City"- alone. We must go together and stand 
together. We must seek companionship and accept 
helps, or we shall surely sink in the ''Slough of 
Despond," or lose our way farther on. 

Then let us lay hold of one another's hands and 
go together even to the river's edge, and never be 
afraid. 

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the 
shadow of death, I will fear no evil," for 'Thy rod 
and thy stafT they comfort me." 



HELPING THE FUTURE 



Dig deep for truth, 
And when your hands have struck the hidden vein 
Its waters shall gush up to meet your lips 
With a most tempting loveliness, whereof 
Your souls may sate their thirst forevermore. 
So live, and ye shall -flourish; and, perchance. 
When your green springtime, with its buds and blooms. 
Passes to the ripe autumn, there shall be 
Such mellozved plenty of rich-Havored fruit 
That the old epicure — the world — shall bend 
And stagger beneath her treasures, as a vine 
Totters beneath its luscious load of grapes. 

— Richard Realf in "The Human Statue" 



V 



HELPING THE FUTURE 

Let lis be such as help the life of the future. — Zoroaster 

For the origin of our text we must look away 
back among the hills of Bactria. Perhaps a thousand 
miles farther east than Nazareth, and perhaps six 
hundred or more years before the birth of Jesus, 
there lived a man named Spitama, whom his people 
called Zarathushtra, Zoroaster, a priest. Of the 
events of his life little is known. Tradition has handed 
down the name of his father and of a daughter, and 
through the mists we see the dim outlines of a stal- 
wart old prophet, a vigorous reformer who protested 
against the dead-and-alive sanctities of conventional 
religion and insisted on the integrities that spring 
from a sense of duties near at hand. 

The ancient Hindus, from whom the prophet 
descended, glorified the life of a dreamer who idly 
prayed beneath the palm trees while his flocks grazed 
the unplowed valleys. But Zoroaster said : ''Live no 
more in tents, but build you houses. Plow the 
earth and plant the soil with seed." He taught that 
one of the most pleasing spots to the Creator is the 
place where corn is cultivated and fruit-bearing trees 
are grown, and that he is pleasing to Ahura-Mazda, 
the Holy One, who provides water for unwatered 
lands and drainage for watery lands. And further 
he says : 

77 



78 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



Whoso cultivates barley cultivates virtue. When the wheat 
appears the demons hiss, when sprouts come they whine, 
when the stalks stands up they cry, and when the grain is in 
the ear they flee in rage and despair. Whoever tills the earth 
with both hands, to him she bears fruit. Whoever tills her not, 
to him she says : "Thou shalt stand at another's gate begging 
food of those who have much." 

Perhaps Zoroaster was as far removed from 
Jesus in time as was King Alfred from Abraham 
Lincoln, and still, out of that remoteness, from the 
lips of that shadowy sage, come the words : "Do as 
ye would be done by;" and again: ''Be very scrupu- 
lous to observe the truth in all things." His mes- 
sage was : Life is a conflict, a battle between the 
good and the evil, and in this battle every soldier 
must carry his own arms, win his own laurels, and 
do the duty which no one can do for him. How like 
the prophet of Nazareth! 

Again, Zoroaster, standing on a mount, facing 
the sacred fire, addressed his followers and neigh- 
bors, and said: 

Ye offspring of renowned ancestry, awake, both men and 
women, choose ye today your creed between the Ahura and the 
Deva, between the religion of spiritual resistance and the religion 
of physical indulgence. Choose ye one of the two spirits. Be 
good and not base. You cannot belong to both of them. Let us 
be such as help the life of the future. The prudent wishes to 
be only where wisdom is at home. Wisdom is the shelter from 
lies, the destroyer of the evil spirit. All spiritual things are 
garnered up in the splendid residence of the good mind. The 
wise and the righteous are the best, therefore perform ye the 
commandments pronounced by the Creator. 



HELPING THE FUTURE 



79 



It is not probable that Zoroaster ever wrote down 
these stalwart sentences. He trusted them to the 
vigor of the human mind, he planted them in the 
love of the human heart; and lo! here, after more 
than twenty-six hundred years, and half-way around 
the globe from where he stood, his words are on our 
lips today: ''Let us be such as help the life of 

THE future/' 

What high purpose was this! Not fame, money, 
or ease, not social distinction or mental adornment, 
not influence or renown, did the brave Persian pray 
for, but rather that he might be such as should help 
the life of the future. It may seem a long way back 
across the hills of time to where that grim but kind 
reformer stood, clad in sheepskins, and living on 
goats' milk and barley cake; but a still longer stretch 
is it from the noble Zoroaster back to the real primi- 
tive age when man was so selfish that he sought but 
his own food or that of his immediate family or clan, 
when he counted his enemies more often than he did 
his friends, and was moved with jealousy and hatred 
more often than he was inspired to deeds of love and 
helpfulness. In Zoroaster's prayer we catch a prom- 
ise of a more beautiful time to come; of an age when 
there will be less want and more plenty, less hatred 
and more love, less cruelty and more kindness; of a 
time when men, instead of trying to live upon each 
other, will be glad to live for each other, when the 
great study will be, not how I can get ahead of the 
others, but how I can best help them along. 



8o 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



Back of Zoroaster was the time when conquest 
was the dream of the strongest and murder the busi- 
ness of the powerful; and since the day of Zoroaster 
such aims have still been the inspiration of too many 
people. But he prayed that he might be such as 
should help the life of the future; and we look back 
across those years as across a sea, and find that, while 
thousands of warriors who led their braves to battle, 
thousands of merchants who sent their caravan trains 
of laden camels across the desert with their wealth, 
or sailed their ships across the seas with their luxuries, 
have gone down out of sight and out of memory, 
their names forever lost, this simple priest who said, 
''Adore God by means of sincere actions," and prayed 
that he might be "such as should help the life of the 
future," survives to this day to teach us that "God is 
the reality of the good mind, the good deed, and the 
good word." 

How can we bring the lesson of Zoroaster down 
to date? How can we help the life of the future? 
My first answer is : By living now. Life, not its 
belongings, reaches into the future. Life is health; 
it is something inside, not outside; it is simplicity, it 
is sobriety, it is earnestness. Anything that inter- 
feres with our life today will rob the future of much 
of our helpfulness. If we would help the future, we 
must be helpful now, live today and not seem to live, 
never mind the show, but be. 

Everything that turns our life away from the 
good — the silly dress, the love of display, the weak 



HELPING THE FUTURE 



8i 



habit, the social cowardice that now toys with the 
cigarette and tomorrow dares not say "No" to the 
glass of wine or mug of beer — all stand between us 
and the future. The "good time" that leaves us with 
a headache, the party that leaves us with a heartache 
or a sense of wasted hours, the dress that has cost 
undue money and strength, making the light of the 
eye less beautiful or the love of the heart less mani- 
fest in the face, lessening the kindly earnestness, the 
modest self-forgetfulness — all these will darken the 
future. The foul word, the impure thought, the 
coarse jest, the profane speech — all reach into the 
future, all touch and hurt the life that is to come. 

The dude with his big-headed cane, the belle with 
her long train, pinched waist, flashing colors, and 
other vulgarities of dress, are hurting, not helping, 
the life of the future; but the girl who ornaments 
herself with intelligence, who adorns her heart with 
kindness and earnestness, whose spirit is so sweetly 
modest, kind, and thoughtful that these qualities 
somehow reach the very hem of her garment, per- 
vade the ribbon with which she ties her hair, and 
make gracious and graceful the dress with which she 
obscures herself, is helping the future, is making 
more beautiful the lives and homes that are to be. 
And so the boy who makes his companionship valu- 
able because he can say "No," whose speech is such 
as he would never blush to use in the presence of 
mother and sister; the boy whose heart is open to 
kindly impulses, whose mind is trained to think, is 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



surely making the future more blessed to someone 
because he has lived. There is going to be a home 
somewhere the more noble, there is going to be a 
government more pure, there is going to be a world 
richer, because he has lived; there is going to be a 
future fuller of heaven, because he rooted out some 
evil weed that otherwise would have grown, and 
planted in its place some good seed that grew. 

Yes, if we would help the life of the future, we 
must live now, by putting clean hearts into sound 
bodies. Brave minds must gather helpful thought 
into the granaries of the soul, so that in time of 
famine there will be plenty. 

"Remember that today will never dawn again," 
is a word of the great Dante. Do not wait for any- 
thing. Begin now. Every day is confirmation day 
in the church of the living God. 

Not enjoyment and not sorrow 

Is our destined end or way, 
But to act, that each tomorrow 

Find us farther than today. 

Do not wait for graduation. Every day is graduation 
day in the college of life. The good Buddha, who 
went off and hid himself in a cave on the margin of 
a great forest hoping that he might find the truth, 
waited for light that should show him how to help the 
world. But no light came to him, and he was grow- 
ing sick and discouraged, when one day a shepherd 
boy passed with his flock of sheep. Buddha noticed 
that this boy was carrying a footsore lamb, and he 



HELPING THE FUTURE 



83 



said: 'The boy is doing better than I." So he left 
his cave, sought the world to mingle with men and 
women; and light came to him, so that he helped the 
future mightily. How beautiful to think of the mil- 
lions of flowers that are each morning placed upon 
the bloodless shrines of Buddha, who taught gentle- 
ness to millions of the human race! 

The author of "Tip-Cat," ''Miss Toosey's Mis- 
sion," and "Laddie," wrote a story called "Our 
Little Ann." It is about a brave little girl who had 
such a hard time of it as one could scarcely think — 
real sorrow, actual heartache. She did not go off 
into a corner to pine and grow pale, and break her 
little heart beyond all possibilities of mending, as so 
many girls in and out of story-books do when things 
go wrong with them; but she turned right to and 
worked the harder, and found that "there is nothing 
like a little hurry for keeping down sentiment when it 
threatens to become unmanageable." She learned 
that 

A capital recipe for a broken heart is to have no time to think 
of it, and to be obliged to keep up a bright exterior for the sake 
of others. After a time the brightness penetrates below the 
surface, and when you have time to think of your own troubles 
you find a heart, if not quite mended, still not quite so hope- 
lessly crushed as it seemed at first. 

I think little Ann was right. It is selfish hearts that 
get broken beyond mending. It is lazy lives that are 
easily crushed. The self-seeking life is a despondent 
life. 



84 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



In this book of ''Little Ann" is the story of a 
plain old miller for whom, when he came to die, they 
stopped the mill that it might not disturb him. But in 
the morning he was very restless. He could not speak, 
but he listened and pointed to the watch, and seemed to 
be wanting something. Finally the old mill-hand dis- 
covered the trouble. "Dash un! — Blest if he ain't 
listening for she;" and off he went It was six 
o'clock in the morning. The cracked old mill-bell 
rang out, the old mill-wheel with its creaking machin- 
ery started, and the bedstead in the neighboring 
house shook ; but the old miller rolled over and went 
to sleep. Keep at it, boys and girls ! Find the music 
of Hfe in the mill-wheel. Find rest in the toil. If 
you would help the life of the future, be at it now. 

This, then is our first rule. Help the life of 
the future by living in the now. Our second rule 
will be : Help the life of the future by living for the 
now. The good Zoroaster did not know of America; 
he did not think of any Chicago, twenty-five centuries 
away; but he knew a great deal about the life of 
Persia; he thought much of the pains, and the still 
more distressing pleasures of the people about him, 
and he was anxious to help them. He became pos- 
sessed of a purpose to improve the life of his time ; and 
we reap the harvest of his desire. So it is always. 
The man who thinks of what the world will say of 
him a hundred years hence will very likely not be 
heard of at the end of that hundred years. The man 
who remembers himself too well today will surely be 



HELPING THE FUTURE 



8S 



forgotten before many days ; but he who forgets him- 
self today may be remembered in a hundred years. 
But what if he is not ? Never mind about that. Suffi- 
cient it is to know that self-seeking is mean, self- 
forgetting is noble. Put yourself out of the way 
that you may put somebody else in the way. Remem- 
ber the little girl in Whittier's "In School Days," 
who said: 

"I'm sorry that I spelt the word ; 
I hate to go above you 
Because" — the brown eyes lower fell — 
"Because, you see, I love you." 

Still memory to a gray-haired man 
That sweet child-face is showing. 

Dear girl ! The grasses on her grave 
Have forty years been growing. 

He lives to learn in life's hard school, 

How few who pass above him 
Lament their triumph and his loss, 
Like her, — because they love him. 

Have you heard the story of Margaret, the Irish 
baker-woman who used to give crackers to the hungry 
little street-urchins of New Orleans ? As she prospered 
in business and rose out of her poverty, she found 
more ways of helping, until she was known as the 
friend of the friendless by all the poor in the city. 
And when she died. New Orleans had a beautiful 
statue of IMargaret cut in marble, with a little plaid 
shawl over her shoulders, dressed just as she used to 
dress as a baker-woman, and they put that statue in a 
public place, which they called the Margaret Square. 



86 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



It stands directly in front of a beautiful home for 
orphan children which she helped establish. I believe 
it is the only statue of a woman that graces a public 
place out of doors in the United States; at least it 
was so at the time of its erection. Margaret 
never thought of that statue. She lived for the now, 
and the future could not spare her. 

I want to remind you of the story of another 
woman who, when ^'society folk" and the people who 
lived on ''Quality Hill" and went riding on the 
high-toned avenues, had turned against a good man 
and were going to put him out of the city — indeed, 
put him to death, as they finally did — rushed in, 
bathed his feet with her tears, wiped them with her 
hair, and anointed them with the only valuable thing 
she seemed to have — some perfumed ointment which 
was to prepare her body for the grave. It was 
costly, and poor people used to save their money 
while in health, so that they might have the ointment 
in the house ready for the solemn ceremony. She did 
not think of the future. That woman forgot herself. 
She saw that there was a good man abused, a brave 
man imposed upon, a loving soul hated, and she 
thought she could do something to stem the tide; at 
least she would show him that there was one heart 
that loved him, one soul that had been helped by his 
words. The people who stood around said: "This 
is wasteful. Here is three hundred pennies' worth, 
and the poor might have had it." But the wise man 
for whom she had poured out her ointment said: 



HELPING THE FUTURE 



87 



"Let her alone. She hath wrought a good work. 
Verily, I say unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall 
be preached in the whole world, that also which this 
woman hath done shall be spoken of as a memorial 
of her." She lived for the now, and in that way she 
helped the life of the future. 

Let me once again remind you of the tender story 
of that good man himself. He was born into a car- 
penter's home, grew up in simple peasant ways, obedi- 
ent to father and mother; but he learned to pity the 
people who were restless with selfish passions and 
excited over unworthy aims, and he began to teach 
them in a quiet, simple fashion to care less for things 
and more for thoughts; not to be anxious for show, 
but to seek after substance. He told them not to hate, 
but to love. He made them feel how true his lessons 
were; he showed them how powerful love was by lov- 
ing them. He had kind words for the people who 
were considered very wicked. He talked with vulgar 
foreigners, and he ate with very common people, 
such as the respectable folks would have nothing to 
do with. At last these very "proper people" grew 
very indignant; they misunderstood him; hence they 
misrepresented him and caused him to be put to death 
on the cross; but that kind, poor man, that obscure, 
loving peasant, that carpenter who worked for his 
time, for his "now," somehow helped the future more 
than any other man that ever lived. 

So I might go on to my sermon's end with stories 
to show that the best way to help the future is by 



88 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



helping the *'now," and that you can help the ''now" 
only by living now. 

But you knew all this before. Your difficulty is 
to know how to do it. Very right, my children. Let 
us see if we can find any help here. How can we live 
now and for the ''now" in such a way that we shall 
help the future? In the first place, we must be con- 
tent to be ourselves. The frog in the fable came to 
grief because he tried to make himself as big as an 
ox. I have seen men — yes, and women too — come 
to a similar catastrophe because they were so "puffed 
up;" they filled themselves with "make-believe" until 
they burst; or, even if they did not burst, they could 
not hide the fact that their greatness was mostly a 
bubble. If you have a small head, make the most of it ; 
use it well, my lad, and do not try to make people 
believe that it is larger than it is; for that will bring 
on one of the worst diseases, namely, mental dropsy, 
sometimes called the "big-head." 

Be yourself ! Think your own thought, not mine 
or anybody's else. Use your own hands, not 
another's. Pay your own nickel rather than your 
father's dollar, to help the cause that is worthy your 
love. 

In the long-ago, when folks began to build the 
great cathedral of York, there was not much money 
to be had, but there was a deal of timber on the 
mountain-side, and the hills were made of splendid 
stone, that might be had for the quarrying. So each 
brought what he could; and over one of the great 



HELPING THE FUTURE 



89 



entrances today there is the image of two knights in 
armor, one carrying a block of wood, the other a big 
round stone. It was all they had, but the giving of 
that made them knightly. 

So, my little friends, boys and girls though you 
are, you can bring to the ''now" your own little 
block of wood, though it be only a chip to chink a 
crack with ; your own unhewn stone, though it be but 
a pebble to fill a corner behind a big hewn stone. 
Doing this, you will contribute to the present so well 
that the future will have noble cathedrals to worship 
in. 

The poor widow who had only two mites, which 
make a farthing, perhaps half a cent in our money, 
put it into the contribution box. Then the wealthy folks 
came and threw in out of their abundance; but the 
good teacher told his pupils that this poor widow had 
cast in more than they all, for they did cast in of their 
superfluity; but she cast in all that she had, even her 
living. How little did she do for her present, how 
much did she do for our future! It was nearly two 
thousand years ago that she gave her half-cent, and 
all the way down the ages life has been made more 
generous, the world more thoughtful, and men and 
women more earnest because of her contribution. 

Two mites, two drops, but all her house and land, 
Fell from an earnest heart but trembling hand, 
The others' wanton wealth foamed high and brave. 
The others cast away; she, only, gave. 

You must do your own work, not another's. 



90 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



Better the half-made thought of a Httle girl or boy, 
with a girl or boy handling it, than the big thought 
of a philosopher, with a little girl or boy trying to 
handle it and not knowing what to do with it. 

I remember another story, which has been done 
into a poem by a great poet. It is about a little wool- 
carder who was tired of praising God in his simple 
way and wished he might praise God in the high way 
in which the pope at Rome praises on Easter Day. 
Gabriel, hearing his prayer, came down and took his 
place in the shop, and the boy grew to be the pope. 
But God missed his little human praise, and the great 
pope was glad to 

Go back and praise again 
The early way. 

Back to the cell and poor employ : 
Resume the craftsman and the boy ! 

My children, your thought may not be as big as 
the thoughts of the creed or the bishop's or the 
pope's; but if they are your thoughts, they are better 
for you, they are better for the world, because you 
can convert them into deeds. 

When David, the shepherd boy, went forth to 
fight the giant, Saul, the tall king, wanted him to 
take his big sword, and wear his heavy armor; but 
if he had, he would have been beaten. He could not 
use the sword of Saul, but he took along his own 
sling-shot. He sought a little pebble, just the right 
size, by the brook, and with that he felled the giant. 
That is the way he "helped the life of the future." 



HELPING THE FUTURE 91 

It is the way you must do it; you must be yourselves. 

This cheerful, happy diligence in today, and for 
today, how are you to realize it so that you may be 
"such as help the life of the future?" I will try to 
give you three words that will point the way. 

1. The first word is Beauty. Learn to realize 
that anything should fit into everything; that every 
fragment is a part of the whole; that harmony gilds 
your life and all life. Spring buds confirm our aspira- 
tions, and the songs of the birds encourage our Easter 
hopes. I have read that the Greek artificers used to 
sing at their work to lighten the burden. When a 
boy, I used to watch the raftsmen on the Wisconsin 
River, as they stood in the cold water, sometimes 
knee-deep, sometimes waist-deep, pulling at the ropes 
that would dislodge the raft from its entanglement; 
and often when the task was hardest they w^ould 
round their ''He-O-Heaves" into a song, thus reduc- 
ing the strain by rhythm; and the raft w^ould 
swing by. When a nurse in an army hospital, I once 
found a soldier boy whistling "Yankee Doodle" while 
lying on his cot with an angry bullet wound through 
his thigh. "It is getting better, is it?" I said. "No, 
it is getting so much worse that I can't stand it any 
other way." 

2. The second word is Love. The world promptly 
forgets the haters. It is loath to part with its lovers. 
Zoroaster's ideal, as expressed in our text, can be 
understood only by realizing that other text, which 
we find in the Chinese scriptures : "Religions are 



92 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



many and different, but reason is one. We are all 
brethren." Here is the secret of that life that is not 
for self. Some day you will read Romola, a great 
story written by a very great and noble woman, and 
in it you will read of the little boy Lillo, who said: 
''I would like to be something that would make me a 
great man and very happy besides, something that 
would not hinder me from having a good deal of 
pleasure." But the good Romola said: 

It is only a very poor sort of happiness that could ever 
come by caring very much about our own narrow pleasures. 
We can have the highest happiness only by having wide thoughts 
and much feeling for the rest of the world, and this happiness 
sometimes brings pain. You could not tell it from pain only 
that you would choose it before everything else because your 
soul sees it is good. 

I know a true story of a boy who, when poor, 
neglected, and friendless, found himself befriended 
by a wicked man, by whom he was led to do bad 
things. He was sent to the state prison. While 
there he sickened; the prison diet did not agree with 
him, and the doctor thought he had not long to live. 
A fellow-convict managed to find a way of stealing 
some sugar for the benefit of his sick cellmate. The 
sick boy was detected with it, and, because he would 
not tell how he got it, he was put into the solitary 
cell and kept there until he fainted away and was 
carried out apparently dead. I do not know whom to 
blame or how to rebuke, but I know there was great 
blame somewhere. I see also much that was beauti- 



HELPING THE FUTURE 



93 



ful in the friendship of those two convicts in the cell, 
and to think of that beauty is to make it easy to love 
them and to work for the world. 

No, we must never lose sight of the inspiring 
fact that humanity is one, and that the cord that 
binds it together is not vice, but virtue. 

3. Lastly, I come to the beautiful word that holds 
all the other words. It stands for the great thing that 
makes all these other things possible, and enables 
every one of you to become "such as help the life of 
the future." This third and last word is Trust. We 
preachers like to call it faith, perhaps; but I think 
''trust" is a better way of spelling it for children, and 
we are all children. We have had serious talks 
together about God, and we have learned that that is 
faith in God which is trust in the right. Believing 
that five times five are ahvays twenty-five, we believe 
in the same way that truth is always better than false- 
hood; that honesty always triumphs in the end; that 
nothing pays but right. 

Robert Browning tells a pretty love-story of a 
beautiful young woman who lived with her aunt, the 
queen; and this beautiful young woman loved a noble 
young man; but the young woman was afraid of the 
queen and begged her lover not to tell the truth, but 
to try to win her by a delusion, by some little trick, 
or sham, or fraud. The story shows how disastrous 
was the result, how it made the three very miserable, 
and how much nobler was the position of the young 
man, who believed that to keep the right end in view 



94 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



was to make all things serve. Now, that young 
woman represents the infidelity that you ought to be 
afraid of. Hers was the real atheism — the belief that 
a lie is better than the truth, distrust in the power of 
honesty. To believe in God is to believe, with Emer- 
son, that the world is made for excellence; that all 
the stars are in league with virtue; that from the 
daisy to Jesus there is a law which, obeyed, will 
bless; which, disobeyed, will blight. This is what 
will make us strong — to find truth in everything and 
right the winning principle everywhere. 

''Difference of worship has divided men into 
many nations. Of all their doctrines I have chosen 
one — the love of God," said a Persian poet. The love 
of God is the love of good. To love the good is to 
believe that duty is the only road to travel on; and, 
traveling that road, though it be through Persian rose 
gardens in the name of Zoroaster, along the broad 
Ganges in the name of Buddha, in humble toil here in 
America in the name of Jesus, or following in the 
broadest love which is the spirit of all these, or even 
groping blindly for it without the help of any of 
these, is to travel the faith road, is to follow the 
beckoning finger of God. This is Trust. 

"The Smalls" is the name of a rock, nearly cov- 
ered by water, in the British Channel, which was the 
cause of many shipwrecks and the loss of many lives, 
until some hundred and forty or fifty years ago, when 
a band of hardy Cornish miners said: "It shall be 
so no more. We will go and plant a signal on that 



HELPING THE FUTURE 



95 



treacherous rock." They sailed out some twenty 
miles from the main land on a pleasant day, and 
began to drill holes in the rock. They had partly 
soldered one long iron rod into the rock when the 
weather suddenly changed, and the cutter on which 
they came had to bear off to avoid shipwreck. The 
storm increased, and for two days and two nights 
those battered men clung to that half-fastened rod of 
iron in a desperate struggle for life. At last the wind 
subsided, and the boat returned with nourishment. 
Did they abandon their task? No. All the more did 
they cling to it. They sunk iron staples into the 
rocks and lashed themselves fast while they worked 
amid the breakers, and erected a light-house that 
stood for a hundred years on legs of iron, saving life 
and guiding the commerce of the world, until it was 
supplanted by a still more lasting one of unyielding 
granite. I doubt if the names of any of those Cornish 
miners have been saved. Their names vanished with 
their faces and were lost with their forms; but, with 
the love of man in their hearts and the power of God 
strengthening their human consciences, they did their 
duty then and there, though the sea a; id the sky were 
arrayed against them. In this high spirit, after this 
divine fashion, must we reinforce our faith and con- 
firm our life, if we are to be such as help the life 
of that future which belongs to the eternity of God. 



SUCCESS AND FAILURE 



THE CROWXIXG DAY 

The mcrniiig hangs its signal 

Upon the mountain's crest, 
While all the sleeping i alleys 

In silent darkness rest; 
From peak to peak it Hashes, 

It laughs along the sky 
That the crozining day is coming by and by! 

Chorus: 

Oil, the cronning day is coming, 

Is coming by and by! 
IV e can see the rose of morning, 

A glory in the sky. 
And that splendor on th^ hill-tops 

O'er all the land shall He 
Tfi tJic croiLiting day that's cotiiir.g by and by! 

Aboz-e the generations 

The lonely prophets rise — 
The truth flings dazL'n and day-star 

Within their glozving eyes; 
From heart to heart if brightens. 

It drazi'cth ever nigh, 
Till it crovcneth all men thinking, by and by! 

The soul hath lifted moments 

Above the drift of days, 
When life's great meaning break eth 

In sunrise on our ziays; 
From hour to hour if Jiaunts us, 

The vision draneth nigh. 
Till it crozi-neth living, dying, by and by! 

— W. C, Gannett 



VI 



SUCCESS AND FAILURE 

However things may seem 
No good thing is failure, 
No evil thing success. 

— Samuel Longfellow 

We have come again to the Easter tide. The 
Confirmation Class has traveled with me into the life 
and thought of far-off ages and distant lands. We 
have gone around the world together in our studies. 
I have asked you to believe with the poet Longfellow, 

That in even savage bosoms 

There are longings, yearnings, strivings 

For the good they comprehend not, 

That the feeble hands and helpless, 

Groping blindly in the darkness 

Touch God's right hand in that darkness 

And are lifted up and strengthened. 

We have looked into the bibles of many nations, 
and I have tried to show you that we found there 
many phrases for the one reality, many names for the 
same unspeakable beauty and power. We have 
caught accents from the teachings of Zoroaster and 
Confucius, Buddha and Mohammed, and we have 
found that they, as well as Moses and Jesus, taught 
men to be truthful and honest, and that they did help, 
and still do help, men and women to be patient, kind, 
and reverent. In imagination we have stood before 

99 



100 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



the unquenched fires on the altars of the Parsis, we 
have walked into the temples of Buddhism, visited 
the porcelain prayer-houses of China as well as Chris- 
tian cathedral and chapel, and found much that was 
beautiful, refining, and helpful in all of them. We 
have looked into Christianity a little, and found, or 
thought we found it, a curious network of many 
different threads of different colors; but we found 
something in each of these threads that was admir- 
able. 

The Catholic church has its great cathedrals, its 
splendid ritual, its brave men and gentle women. The 
Protestant church has its Luther, its Fox, its Knox, 
and its Wesley. We have looked into the story of 
Christian heresies and have not been afraid of the 
Christian heretics. We have wished we could know 
more of the story of Arius, of the Socinii, the brave 
Servetus who endured martyr flames without flinching, 
the truth-seeking Priestley, the gentle Channing, 
the God-trusting Hosea Ballou, and the splendidly 
earnest Theodore Parker. We have listened to some 
of the songs and committed to memory some of the 
lines of the forward-looking Lowell, the man-loving 
Whittier, the clear-eyed Emerson, representative of 
the round world ; and we have found much to admire 
in all of these. They have taught us to believe that 
the world is tending toward a universal faith, that it 
is yet to discover that there is but one religion and 
one morality. 

Now, at the end of our year's study I should like 



SUCCESS AND FAILURE 



lOI 



to give you the highest, and perhaps the most diffi- 
cult, lesson of all — the lesson indicated in the text of 
your own choosing. It is a familiar text to us. We 
have often read it together in our Sunday-school 
service. It is inscribed upon one of our mantels and 
looks down upon us whenever we are in this church- 
home of ours. But back of our ser\'ice-book, back 
of our American poet, aye, before the high sayings of 
Jesus were uttered, the good pagan Socrates said the 
same thing in about the same way : "Know of a 
truth that no evil can happen to a good man either in 
life or in death." 

''Let us take this mantel text and see what 'Mr. 
Jones can do with it when he comes to preach our 
sermon." was the remark of one of your number 
when you were seeking your motto. So you have 
given me the text as a sort of challenge. You, with 
many, many of your elders, have asked me, ''Do you 
really believe that motto?" 

If I expect you to believe it, I must try to show 
how it is true. I must try to make room for all the 
disappointing facts that seem to contradict it. This 
is not a text to be settled by argument. The great 
truths are never proved true by discussion : they are 
proved true by experience. This is the text to be 
established by life, not by logic. 

However things may seem, 
Xo good thing is failure, 
Xo evil thing success. 

I wish I could say that no bad man ever succeeds 



102 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



in business, and that no good man eventually fails in 
business. I wish I could tell you that ''honesty is the 
best policy" to get rich by, that only worth eventually 
triumphs in trade. But I cannot say this. It may be 
centuries yet before these things can be truthfully 
said. I admit the arguments you have urged. The 
tricky often do get ahead, the selfish do grow wealthy, 
the dishonest sometimes make money, build great 
houses, and furnish them with beautiful things. 

I wish I could tell you that evil ways always 
bring disease and pain, and that right living gives 
health, good sleep, and sound digestion ; but I cannot 
even say this, because I know that as yet many men 
of low moral standards have good digestion and 
splendid bodies, while many earnest and noble men 
and women are racked with pain and crippled by 
disease. 

I wish I could tell you that goodness always 
brings happiness in this world, and that the mean 
man is always miserable; but I cannot, for the very 
opposite is often true; often the sensitive conscience 
carries the woes of the world in its heart, and it can- 
not be happy. Buddha, though surrounded with all 
the luxuries of a palace, heard everywhere the cry of 
the suffering. As he rode out in search of pleasure, 
he saw the aged, the sick, and the overworked. His 
goodness did not make him happy. Many a wicked 
man does have a jolly time, his rest is unbroken by 
duty's calls, and his sleep is undisturbed by pity's 
darts. 



SUCCESS AND FAILURE 



I wish I could tell you that only the good are 
respected and trusted by their fellows, that excellence 
is the only condition of fame and respect; but I can- 
not forget that on every election day good citizens 
vote for bad men, and that the halls of our Congress 
often echo with the voices of those who have won 
their way there by low tricks and high selfishness. 

If, then, the good are oftentimes poor, sick, 
ignored, and despised, while, on the other hand, the 
bad are rich, healthy, and merry, how can I ask you 
to believe that 

No good thing is failure, 
No evil thing success? 

If our text is a true one, we must find some 
other measure of life than money, health, or 
pleasure. 

First, let us hold our text off at arm's length and 
notice how history reverses the decisions of a day. 
God seems to honor those whom men despise. Most 
of the healthy, wealthy, and merry people of Athens 
who lived four hundred years before Jesus seem to 
have been forgotten and lost; we can only guess at 
the names of a few of them. But the poor stone- 
cutter, the homely and serious Socrates, the one man 
in Athens who seemed at that time to have made a 
complete failure of himself, lives today, and is loved, 
honored, and powerful. 

Nineteen-hundred years ago there were rich men in 
Jerusalem who had houses, horses, and land, and 
there was a poor peasant who had tried his hand at 



I04 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



carpentry and perhaps a little fishing, and had prob- 
ably not made much of a success of anything. He 
was abused and put to death; and still history points 
to him as the most successful man that ever walked 
the hills of Palestine. Today his name is the most 
powerful name in the world, and his face beams 
through the centuries as the face of a god. Pilate, 
Caiphas, and their followers, who seemed to suc- 
ceed, failed; Jesus, whose life failed, succeeded. 
Something made triumph for him even on the cross. 

Martin Luther was so poor that he had to earn 
money for his education by playing his flute on the 
streets^, and when he became a great preacher he had 
to eke out a very meager income by trying his hand at 
gardening, clock-making, and wood-turning; yet he 
was greater than any crowned head in Europe at that 
very time. History again says that what seems fail- 
ure is very often a magnificent success. 

God measures a deed, not as we do, by the amount 
of money it brings or the happiness it yields, but by 
its usefulness, its value to eternity. Life is measured 
by its service, not by its dollars. Abraham Lincoln 
is one of the saddest figures in American history. 
His youth was pinched with poverty, his maturity 
furrowed with care, his reward cut short by an 
assassin's bullet; and still, what are Vanderbilt's mil- 
lions, John L. Sullivan's muscles, or the sound sleep of 
a thousand selfish athletes compared to the sad suc- 
cesses of Abraham Lincoln? Was he not one of the 
splendidly successful men of America? 



SUCCESS AND FAILURE 



We find, then, that one way of measuring suc- 
cess is by applying the long-time rule. Wait awhile 
before you count that man a success. Wait awhile 
before you count this man a failure. Ten, twenty, 
fifty, eighty years are not long enough to test the 
results of a life. See that mean man go to Congress. 
**Yes, evil is successful," you say. Wait awhile until 
you see him drop out of Congress, out of life, as if 
he had never been, and then re-read your verdict and 
say: "No evil thing is success." See that good man 
kept at home, defeated, unknown, unhonored. "There 
is a good thing that is a failure," you say. See lov- 
ing tears dropped upon his coffin, see the white shaft 
of respect that rises to his memory in the hearts of 
his neighbors. Re-read your decision again and say: 
"No good thing is failure." 

See that proud belle, who was never gracious or 
helpful at home, and whom nobody liked at school; 
yet she had partners at the dance, she was courted in 
society, she married well, her husband was rich and 
indulgent toward her, her home was elegant, and she 
seemed so fortunate! She may even die happy, as 
we see happiness; and still that plain girl who plod- 
ded in school, drudged at home, and died under a 
burden of disappointment may be more of a success 
measured by the long tests of time. The little chil- 
dren taught by this plain but loving girl will win the 
triumphs she did not reach, will be the beauty she 
only dreamed of. The patience which cost her pain 
will bloom into smiles in some other heart. 



lo6 LOVE AND LOYALTY 

History seems to have great respect for many 
people whom their neighbors despised, and very Httle 
respect for many people v^hom their neighbors called 
successful. The universe seems to believe our text 
and practice it, however it may be with you and me. 
The world once called Napoleon a great success 
because he had conquered armies and acquired 
nations; but, in less than a hundred years, history 
begins to pronounce him the biggest failure of modern 
times. 

But suppose history sometimes fails to prove my 
text. If the good deed misses not only money and 
pleasure, but misses also the pages of history, if it 
abides nowhere outside, it still stays inside. Every 
good thing builds a little higher that column in the 
soul which we call character. If it does nothing else, 
it puts you in line with all that is excellent; while, on 
the other hand, every evil deed compels you to keep 
company with all that is despicable. 

Two boys start out in life, one saying, "I am 
going to succeed;" while the other, not daring to 
dream of success, hopes for a bit of usefulness. 
Perhaps we should pronounce both their lives fail- 
ures. One misses the money, and the other misses 
the usefulness he planned for. But the latter added 
some goodness to the stock of the world somewhere, 
while the former introduced a minus quantity into 
the equation. 

You know how a flash of light may strike the 
sensitive plate in the camera for a secondj mi that 



SUCCESS AND FAILURE 107 

photographic plate may be put away in the garret, 
neglected, forgotten among the rubbish. Years after- 
ward, if that plate is subjected to the proper chemi- 
cals, the picture comes out strong and clear. So, dear 
children, I believe there is not a ''Thank you, ma'am" 
or an ''If you please, sir," thrown out of the kindly 
life of a boy or girl but falls upon some sensitive plate 
which will one day be developed into a touch of 
gentleness, a bit of beauty. 

Evil cannot succeed, because it is linked to the 
forces that hurt. Good cannot fail, for it is in league 
with what is excellent. The one belongs with the 
forces that help, the other is allied to the forces that 
hurt. In the Hindu scripture there is found this 
parable : 

Vishnu asked Bal to take his choice, — 

With five wise men to visit hell, 
Or with five ignorant visit heaven. 

Then quick did Bal in heart rejoice. 
And chose in hell with the wise to dwell : 

For heaven is hell, with folly's bell, 
And hell is heaven, with wisdom's leaven. 

Science tells us that no power is ever lost, and 
that the blow I now give this table will never stop. 
The force is communicated from my hand to the 
atoms in the board, the board transmits it to the floor, 
and the floor to the earth, and every tremor of the 
earth will eventually be felt in the moon, in Mars, in the 
sun — yes, throughout all space. So, my lad, the tune 
you whistled yesterday is on its way today to yonder 
planet on the material side, and on the spiritual side 



io8 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



it is on its way to the heart of the infinite God who 
is the infinite good. If it was a kindly tune, nothing 
can change its httle note of praise. "No good thing 
is failure!" Little girl, the unkind kick you gave the 
cat yesterday is on its way through the realms of 
cruelty. It was one little feather-stroke added to the 
force of unkindness, the bulk of which makes human- 
ity groan today, and no time or distance will make a 
kindness out of that blow. You cannot change a fell 
force into a loving energy. Says Longfellow : 

I shot an arrow into the air, 
It fell to earth, I knew not where; 
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight 
Could not follow it in its flight. 

I breathed a song into the air, 
It fell to earth, I knew not where; 
For who has sight so keen and strong, 
That it can follow the flight of song? 

Long, long afterward in an oak 
I found the arrow, still unbroke; 
And the song, from beginning to end, 
I found again in the heart of a friend. 

Yes, both the arrow and the song strike somewhere. 

May we not then believe that ''no good thing is 
failure," because, first, history seems to prove that 
in the long run ''the right comes uppermost and 
ever is justice done?" There is a power that defeats 
the tyrant who rides his horse with iron shoes over 
the writhing bodies of his subjects, a power that 
reverses the judgment of every iniquitous court, ren- 



SUCCESS AND FAILURE 109 

ders worthless the coin of unrighteous governments, 
and brings to hght the hidden mischief and the sly 
intrigues of a mean man. This is proved so often 
that I have faith to believe it is true in cases where 
the evidence does not appear. 

Secondly, may we not believe that ''no good thing 
is failure" because it stays at home to bless, if it 
blesses nowhere else. George Eliot has left us a pretty 
story in verse about good old "Agatha," a pure-minded 
Catholic peasant, a maiden grandmother living 
in an Alpine hut. She prays for young Hans gone 
soldiering, because the prayer "eases her own soul if 
it goes nowhere else." So the good deed, the good 
thought, is a success if it does nothing and goes 
nowhere other than to help build the beautiful white 
column of character in the soul itself. 

Nothing is failure that makes for character; 
nothing is success that hurts it. Millions cannot buy 
the benediction that lurks in the loving impulse of the 
poorest laborer who believes in justice and tries to 
live up to his belief. 

But, in the third place and chiefly, we may believe 
that "no good thing is failure," because we believe that 
God is, now, here, everywhere, taking account of things 
said and done, posting the books every day and every 
hour in the day. To think that evil brings success in 
any true and high sense is to believe that there is no 
law and that the universe is not dealing fairly with 
us. I believe in this motto in the same way and for 
the same reason that I believe in next summer's 



110 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



strawberries. I would have you trust it as you will 
trust your flower-seeds in the ground next May. I 
do not see the June strawberries yet; I cannot prove 
to you that your seed will grow; but I know that the 
sun shines today in accordance with a law that will 
cause it to shine stronger in June. I know the straw- 
berries ripen when the sun is hot enough, and you feel 
that flowers reward wise seed-sowing. 

I said at the outset that honesty is not always 
rewarded with prosperity, and that success sometimes 
follows the trickster in trade. But it will not always 
be so; indeed, it is less so now than it used to be. 
Every year it is getting harder and harder for a mean 
man even to make money and keep it. Slowly the 
country is learning to distrust the demagogue; and 
the day is coming when men will so understand the 
laws of the universe that they will respect them, and 
then they will act as God does toward evil. Every 
man who cheats is like the baby who plays with the 
candle, and he will get his fingers burned if he does 
not look out. 

In the latter half of the seventeenth century there 
lived in a little town in northern Italy a quaint maker 
of violins. He was never seen without his leathern 
apron. Year after year he brooded upon the myster- 
ies of his craft. Everything that entered into his art 
he dwelt upon with loving care. All the woods of 
the Swiss mountains he tried ; the intestines of all the 
animals he stretched for strings; the quality of hairs 
found in different horses' manes and tails he tried; 



SUCCESS AND FAILURE 



III 



the number of hairs which it was fitting to put into 
the bow he counted and experimented with. Every 
httle piece of wood that entered into the interior he 
measured, weighed, and pohshed; until at last he 
lifted his humble craft to the dignity of a fine art, 
and a Stradivarius violin became as much sought 
after, and brought almost as much money, as a paint- 
ing of Raphael's. Content and diligent he toiled, 
making his last violin at ninety-two years of age, sus- 
tained in all this diligence, not by the hope of fame, 
or pay, or success, but simply by the thought of 
making a perfect violin, that when the great masters 
came he might give them great instruments to play 
upon. He toiled with the simple thought that God 
had chosen him to help him. For him to stop his 
work would be to rob God. George Eliot has given 
us his labor song: 

My work is mine, 
And, heresy or not, if my hand slacked, 
I should rob God — since He is fullest good — 
Leaving a blank instead of violins. 
I say not God Himself can make man's best 
Without best men to help Him. I am one best 
Here in Cremona, using sunlight well 
To fashion finest maple till it serves 
More cunningly than throats, for harmony. 
*Tis rare delight : I would not change my skill 
To be the Emperor with bungling hands, 
And lose my work, which comes as natural 
As self at waking. 



112 



LOVE AXD LOYALTY 



'Tis God gives skill, 
But not without men's hands : He could not make 
Antonio Stradivari's violins 
Without Antonio. 

At last the hand and brain that ''''without haste 
and also without rest labored for the production of 
the violin" ceased, and the world was greedy for 
violins attuned to the ear of Stradivarius. Many 
lesser workmen hastened to palm oil upon the market 
their imitations, and some of them caught well many 
of the secrets of Antonio's art. They could imitate 
the shape, color, and even the tone, so that experts 
could not distinguish. But at last there came an exi- 
gency in the life of these instruments such as seems 
to have come into the life of all the older violins. 
As they increased in resonance, rising in pitch, neces- 
sitating an added tension of the strings, the inside 
post supporting the bridge proved too weak, and the 
violins had to be opened and a stronger post put in. 
And behold, when these fiddles were opened the fraud 
became apparent, for the inner pieces — the little 
blocks, ribs, and slips of wood — showed a hasty work- 
man, a careless hand, a callous conscience. Here 
were lumps of glue, and scratched and unpolished 
surfaces, where the master left none such. 

Let us too become artists like Stradivarius, the 
fiddle-maker, who believed so much that 

Xo good thing is failure, 
Xo evil thing success, 

that he was content with nothing less than excellence, 



SUCCESS AND FAILURE 



and aimed ever at the perfection which left no 
scratched blocks on the inside. Like old Antonio of 
Cremona, let us lend ourselves out to God, make ''in- 
struments for masters to play upon," and let us 
"wince at false work and love the truth," even though 
it be apparent failure, aye, though no God is there to 
watch it. 

You know what Longfellow says of the old Greek 
builders, who 

Wrought with greatest care 
Each minute and unseen part; 
For the gods see everywhere. 

Let us do our work as well, 
Both the unseen and the seen; 

Make the house where gods may dwell, 
Beautiful, entire, and clean. 

I like the piety of those artists who wrought well 
the hidden parts because ''the gods see everywhere;" 
but I like still better the religion of the faithful Welsh 
stone-mason I know up in Wisconsin, who, when 
urged to toss off a piece of work roughly because the 
building would hide it and no one would know how it 
looked, replied, "Ah, but I would know it!" and so 
finished the inside pillar with the deliberation and 
nicety of the loving craftsman. 

This is the last and highest piety which will not 
desecrate the sanctities of right and beauty as revealed 
to one's own soul. Be your own divine authority; let 
the voice of the infinite God find itself in your voice, 
if nowhere else in all the universe; let the spirit of 



114 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



eternal beauty work through your hands, if nowhere 
else; let heavenly love abide in your hearts, even if all 
the rest of the universe is cruel. Be you just, though 
injustice reigns supreme. 

So, dear children, if our walks together through 
the religious gardens of the world, our attempts to 
study, boy and girl fashion, the meaning of religion, 
have brought us what I hoped they would, the lesson 
bids us do the good and shun the evil, not because it 
will bring health, wealth, or fame, not because this 
will bring peace, joy, or heaven, but because it is 
right, and our souls long for it, because we want to 
add to the stock of good in the world, to make melody 
where there is now discord, beauty where there is 
now blemish. If this quest shall bring with it a 
measure of power and a degree of plenty, we shall be 
glad, take heart, and strive the harder. But if pov- 
erty, weakness, pain, neglect, must come, as they have 
often come to our betters, still let us try to live as if 
we believed our text: 

However things may seem, 
No good thing is failure, 
No evil thing success. 



LIFE'S COMMISSION 



GOOD SHALL CONQUER, NEVER FEAR 

Be zve the courage-hringers ! 
Let laugh the hells, O ringers! 
Earth's hero-hearts and singers 

Promise peace. 
Despair and grief why borrow? 
The world needs joy, not sorrow; 
Work gladly for the morrow, — 

Wrong shall cease. 

Chorus: 

Never fear! Light is growing! 
Never fear! Truth is blowing 
Where humanity shall share it, — 
Never fear! 
Never fear! Clouds are Heeing; 
Never fear! Men are seeing 
That the good at last shall conquer, — 
Never fear! 

With hope and high endeavor 
Earth's saints have striven ever 
The bonds of ill to sever, — 

We may trust! 
The might of Jesus' preaching. 
The Prince of India's teaching. 
All Plato's forward reaching — 

Win they must! 

Man is still onward striving. 
All happy Art is thriving, 
The Age of Good arriving, — 

Give it scope! ^ 
The heights of being call us; 
If doubt nor fear appall us 
Life's splendor shall befall us, — 

Work and hope. 

James H. West 



VII 



LIFE'S COMMISSION 

On bravely through the sunshine and the showers. 
Time hath his work to do, and we have ours. 

— Emerson 

How much Time does, and how well he does it! 
Have you ever tried to catch him at his work, ever 
looked with curious eyes into his record? Once all 
the fields of space from the sun to Neptune were 
filled with fiery mist, and Time rolled this mist into 
glowing balls, cooled them into solid planets, gathered 
the waters together, and built the dry land. Time 
wore away the flinty spires, filed down the granite 
heights, and, with the aid of the sea and the rain, the 
frosts and the snow, laid the rocks in layers and 
wrote the history of the world in leaves of stone. 
And all this was done, in the main, quietly, and as 
slowly as the wearing-away of the rock by the rain- 
drops or the formation of the sandy beach by the 
ocean. 

After the world was rounded, washed, and 
plowed, Time began to make his garden, and little by 
little, from the simplest fern and moss, grasses, 
flowers, and splendid forests came to be. Alongside 
of this luxuriant vegetation, and dependent upon it, 
grew animal life. First came the tiniest cells, the 
simple life-sacks that rose through jelly-fish, oyster, 
reptile, bird, and mammal, up to man. Forests grew, 

117 



ii8 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



decayed, and were submerged and compressed into 
coal-beds. These coal-beds were raised again into 
the sunlight by the slow bulging motion of the earth's 
crust, and again became dry land on which other 
forests grew. These were in turn submerged, mak- 
ing another layer of coal; three, four, five, six, ten, 
and more times in some places, did this globe raise its 
broad shoulder into the sunlight long enough to 
grow great forests of fern trees, and then sink back 
under its watery ooze, making each time a bed of 
coal — condensed sunlight, preserved fuel — ready for 
man's use when he should arrive to need it, and 
covering that with fresh soil in order to grow another 
garden of trees. 

And what has Time done with and for man since 
he came? We are told how man began — so little 
above the brute; naked, savage, and ignorant; with- 
out a home; without coat, hat, or gun; without 
government, family, or tribe; and with few words to 
express his few thoughts. But Time was patient 
with him. Time, the diligent schoolmaster, taught 
him, until very slowly there came to his aid the dog, 
the loom, the bow and arrow, the gun, and finally the 
printing-press, the steam-engine, the telegraph, and 
the telephone. How long it took to make a block of 
granite! How long it took, again, to teach man how 
to split that block from its lodgment in the breast of 
the mountain ; to shape it and build it into a cathedral, 
and to place within it that other block of stone from 
the breast of another mountain, the white marble 



LIFE'S COMMISSION 



119 



which Michael Angelo shaped into the great statue of 
Moses ! 

All this Time has done and is doing; and Time is 
one way we have of naming that eternal power we 
find everywhere, always working, never resting, never 
hasting, always pushing, always leading things and 
beings on those outgrowing, upreaching, improving, 
and opening lines which we sometimes call 
Progress, sometimes Evolution, and sometimes Provi- 
dence. Sometimes we call this eternal power Law 
and Order; and again, at other times, when we dimly 
feel that the power which molded the planets, smoothed 
out the valleys, planted the oaks, and caused the 
whale to swim in the sea, the eagle to fly in the air, 
and the horse to gallop over the plains, is the same 
power that makes us love the baby, that teaches us to 
think some things right and other things wrong, and 
makes us glad when we do the one and sad when we 
do the other — then we call it God. And all the 
while we are meaning the same thing; only we 
approach it in a different way and touch it with a 
different part of our nature. Time, that works 
through sunshine and shower; Law, that binds all in 
sunshine and shower, are but half-way names for 
that which the Hindu calls Brahm, the Arabian Allah, 
the Parsee Ahura-Mazda, and we call God. And all 
of them, like ourselves, feel at times how poor are 
words, when applied to something so much better and 
bigger than all our words ; and again, sometimes they 
— and we too, alas ! — mistake the word for the thing, 



120 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



and imagine that when we have the word we have 
found all there is. But we will try to remember that 
the work of Time is being done ''through sunshine 
and through shower," not only in the rock and at 
the bottom of the sea, but in the heart of man, in the 
minds of boys and girls, in the soul that sits on a 
throne, that pilots the ship or rocks the cradle. We 
will also try to remember that the power that made 
the rocks is akin to that which speaks in conscience; 
that that which once created the forest and taught 
the earliest bird to fly is now making character and 
teaching men and women to love and do the right; 
or, as we find it in the great poem of the author from 
whom we took our text : 

Out from the heart of nature rolled 
The burdens of the Bible old; 
The litanies of nations came, 
Like the volcano's tongue of flame, 
Up from the burning core below, — 
The canticles of love and woe. 

Now let us look at the last thought in our couplet, 
which I suspect is the thought that won you : not only 
has Time his work to do, but we have ours. The sun 
attends to his own business, not to yours or mine, 
and every one of us has some little work of his own 
in this world whose importance must not be measured 
by its apparent size. One of the smallest of living 
things that we can study with the naked eye is the 
little coral creature which lives in the bottom of the 
sea. So insignificant is he that it has taken us a 



LIFE'S COMMISSION 



121 



long time to find out how he works, and yet by quietly 
attending to his business, he has built up for us great 
islands. Most of the oranges we delight in are raised 
in Florida, and Florida was built by the little coral 
animal. And he is still busy at work on the outer rim, 
building the bulwark that keeps the waves from tear- 
ing up and carting away our orange gardens. 

And so we come to the thought that we have a 
work to do just as much as Time has. The sun did 
not build the Parthenon. Time could never have 
carved the splendid frieze on that glorious temple, 
if Phidias had not lent him a hand. The political 
geography of the world is as interesting, to say the 
least, as the physical geography. Time made fertile 
the valley of the Nile, and built it up at a rate of 
about five inches of soil in a hundred years ; but it was 
Rameses that built the great pyramids, and some 
mighty Pharaoh built the walls of Thebes and 
caused the great halls of Karnak to rise. Perhaps 
Alexandria is the most interesting thing in the valley 
of the Nile today, and it was built, not by Time, but 
by the great, though often wicked, conqueror, the 
mighty Alexander. 

Have you ever heard the story of Giordano Bruno, 
the brave Italian student who, after languishing seven 
years in prison under the charge of heresy, walked 
with steady step to his place amid the fagots? He 
was burned to death, and it would seem that, if any- 
one ever lived in vain, it was Giordano Bruno. The 
world almost forgot him. But four hundred years 



122 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



after the smoke enveloped him, the free people of 
Italy with song and cheer and waving banners 
unveiled a bronze statue on the very spot where the 
martyr fires consumed him, in sight of the Pope's 
chamber in the Vatican. 

When John Howard went from capital to capital 
in Europe, compelling kings and parliaments to see 
how cruel were their prison systems; when Dorothea 
Dix went from state legislature to state legislature, 
pleading for insane asylums and better treatment for 
the unfortunate, they were helping God, they were 
piecing out Providence, they were doing their work as 
Time was doing his. And so it was with Moses and 
Confucius, Zoroaster and Mohammed, Buddha and 
Jesus. They had a work to do, and they did it. And 
the grateful world honors them today with song and 
temple, procession and ritual. 

You must not be discouraged, children, by these 
illustrations of great men. You may be tempted to 
say: ''They, the noble, did have work to do; but 
that does not imply that we stupid and silly little chil- 
dren can do anything that will help God. We cannot 
piece out Providence and make the world better." The 
little shepherd dog of Colorado, who left her warm 
nest and dependent family of little pups and went out 
into the tangles and mountain gorges, hunting all 
night for the lost sheep and bringing them back in 
the morning, did not think in this way. The faithful 
horse that I saw the other day did not think thus. He 
put his sore shoulder to the pinching collar and tugged 



LIFE'S COMMISSION 



123 



away at the load of flour until he fell upon the stony 
pavement. He then got up and struggled some more, 
fell again, and tried the third time, in a way that only 
infuriated still further the swearing and whipping 
driver. At last he succeeded in getting a firm foot- 
ing and went on with his load of flour, which ere this 
has been made into toothsome biscuits for some boys 
and girls to devour in what I fear may be thoughtless 
ingratitude. He had his work to do. Certainly, 
then, you have yours. 

I like to tell the story of "Bunny," a drummer 
boy that I knew in the army. He was the smallest 
bunch of a drummer boy I ever saw — a little stubby 
German, not more than twelve years old, the son of a 
St. Louis washerwoman. When his brigade made a 
forced march to Memphis, through nearly a hundred 
miles of December slush and mud, in order to bring 
supplies to the starving army cut off by the surrender 
of Holly Springs, they reached Memphis during the 
Christmas days of 1862. They were hungry, poorly 
clad, and had been a long time without pay. Here 
they found the troops well fed, clothed, and comfort- 
able, as it seemed to them; and when, the very next 
morning after their arrival, they were ordered to 
turn around and escort the provision train back to 
their hungry comrades in the interior, they rebelled. 
They said: "It isn't fair. Let the other soldiers go 
while we rest. We must have clothing and pay 
before we leave." And so, when the order was given 
to fall in, nobody moved, the brigade band would not 



124 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



turn out; the drum major would not call out his 
fifers and drummers, and they would not have moved 
if he had. 

The officers went up and down the line, expostu- 
lating with the men; but nobody moved until ''Bun- 
ny," the wee mite of a drummer, seized his drum, 
took his place at the head where the line ought to 
form, and began beating the long roll; and how 
the little dirty hands made the snare drum rattle! 
At first the men jeered, then they laughed, then they 
began to grow silent and ashamed, and one by one 
they seized their muskets and sneaked into line; and 
still ''Bunny's" drum rolled. After a few minutes a 
big wheezy fifer, who had substance enough to cut up 
into three or four "Bunny's," waddled out with his 
fife and joined in with the drum. Then there was a 
cheer, a rush for the ranks, and in less than half an 
hour the tattered regiments and the two pieces of 
artillery were moving out with quick and elastic step 
with wagon-loads of hard-tack for the hungry boys 
sixty miles away. 

Some time in the afternoon, as the column was 
picking its way through the mud and rain in a 
dismal Mississippi swamp, with the boys going "at 
will," I noticed "Bunny" plodding along a mile or 
more behind his regiment with a limp in his foot. I 
put the boy and the drum on the horse which it was 
my business to ride, and I tried to get him to talk ; but 
his was the silent doggedness of his Teutonic race. All 
he would say was: "I schvore I vould help United 



LIFE'S COMMISSION 



125 



States veil I enlisted, and I'm shust goin' to do't." In 
the war reports of that campaign you will read of the 
exploits of major generals, brigadiers, colonels, and 
perhaps a few captains, but you will never find a 
word about ''Bunny;" and still who will say that the 
rattle of his little drum was not the most valuable 
as well as the most heroic contribution made by the 
Western army to the cause of liberty that week? 

Once along the lagoons of Louisiana, under the 
gray festoons of Spanish moss that hung from the 
cypress bough, and once in the awful dust and heat 
of a forced march in the rear of Vicksburg, when the 
troops were hurrying into line of battle, I saw 
''Bunny" limping along as usual behind his regiment, 
with his drum on his shoulder. And then he disap- 
peared. Did his bad ankle grow worse, and did he 
go home, as the adjutant advised on the day of the 
mutiny at Memphis ; or did he lie down one day at the 
root of a tree, unable to go farther, and was his little 
body laid away in a wee, small soldier's grave? I 
never knew. He was not of sufficient importance to 
have a name other than "Bunny," so far as I could 
ever learn; but still he, and not the general with gold 
lace, brass buttons, and silver stars on his shoulder, 
represents the little work that most of us have to do 
in life. And we do it, children, by plodding along, 
though we may never reach the goal. 

We do not know what is big or what is small. 
We do know that what we call results are oftentimes 



126 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



very deceptive. And never, I suspect, do v^e know 
the measure of worth as estimated by God. 

The private soldier walks his solemn beat at mid- 
night in lonely self-depreciation. If the silent bullet 
finds him out, it will not make any apparent difference. 
If he survives, the result will be the same to all 
appearances. Yet, because he walked his silent beat 
the general slept the more soundly and his brain was 
the clearer for the morrow's action. And, though he 
was only a private, and his life went out in obscurity, 
he was one of the hundred thousand whose bodies 
formed the bridge over which the emancipated mil- 
lions passed out of bondage into freedom, singing 
jubilee songs. 

Only a private — and who will care 

When I may pass away, 
Or how, or why I perish, or where 

I mix with the common clay? 
They will fill my empty place again 

With another as bold and brave; 
And they'll blot me out ere the autumn rain 

Has freshened my nameless grave. 

Only a private — it matters not 

That I did my duty well, 
That all through a score of battles I fought, 

And then, like a soldier, fell. 
The country I died for never will heed 

My unrequited claim ; 
And history cannot record the deed, 

For she never has heard my name. 

Only a private, and yet I know 
When I heard the rallying call 



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127 



I was one of the very first to go, 
And — I'm one of the many who fall : 

But as here I lie, it is sweet to feel 
That my honor's without a stain, — 

That I only fought for my country's weal, 
And not for glory or gain. 

Only a private — yet he who reads 

Through the guises of the heart, 
Looks not at the splendor of the deeds 

But the way we do our part ; 
And when he shall take us by the hand, 

And our small service own. 
There'll a glorious band of privates stand 

As victors around the throne ! 

Four children went out one day to gather flowers 
for the king. The mountain-side was gorgeous with 
the yellow blossoms of the broom and the pink of the 
heather. One climbed the rugged sides, and succeeded 
in gathering a bouquet from the hardy shrubs which 
were more beautiful in the distance than close at 
hand. The second sought low, and picked a nosegay 
of the daisies and violets that grew in the grass at the 
foot of the mountain. The third sought diligently, but 
his little feet were weak, and the little hands could 
not hold the blossoms he plucked. The fourth said: 
'T cannot scale the crags, I cannot reach the broom, 
and I will not insult my king with a meaner offering." 
This one alone displeased the king. The empty 
hands, though torn, were welcome, and the daisies 
were beautiful as well as the broom. We are meas- 
ured by what we are rather than by what we bring. 



128 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



What you are aiming at, little one, not what you 
accomplish, determines your service to man. 

I would not dissuade you from high enterprise. 
Strive for large things; but never forget that the 
striving is larger than the thing you strive for. "You 
can not rivet a nail in a boiled potato," says a Japa- 
nese proverb. You cannot do high work with a low 
purpose. You must not expect to do good with a 
selfish intent. ''He that takes a raven for his guide 
shall light upon carrion," said the Persian 
poet. This is true all the world around. There can 
be no exception in your favor or mine. Nobility 
comes only to the noble. Never mind what folks 
think, or say, or do; you try to do your work, not 
theirs. You attend to your own business, not any- 
body's else. It is not your business to succeed. It is 
your business to live worthy success. Said Henry 
Thoreau : "Be not simply good, but be good for 
something." In order to accomplish this, little chil- 
dren, you must "lay the face low on the threshold of 
truth," as a Persian proverb says. 

I cannot tell you what your work is to be. How 
can I ? You yourself do not yet know. Perhaps you 
never will know. Why should you? But I can tell 
you that the only work that will tell in character, the 
only way you can help time and co-operate with 
God, is to enlist for the war, as "Bunny" did. Put 
yourself in the line whether the rest do or not. Do 
you beat your drum though you are hungry and cold. 
Be simple and direct, like the sunlight. Be persist- 



LIFE'S COMMISSION 



129 



ent as gravitation; be as honest as the daylight, as 
earnest as nature, and reverent as befits one who 
every night may look up into the stars and send his 
mind up where the planets are. 

Yes, one thing more. If you have a work to do, 
use the tools that nature has given you. Become 
skilled workmen in the shop God has provided you. 
Would you find truth? You have reason, a little 
experience, a few insights which have come to you 
from all of your forerunners, like the color of your 
eyes and the texture of your hair. Do you want to 
be loved? Set your own heart at work. Meet the 
world with a smile. Greet every day with a kiss. 
Would you know the right, do it. And, still further, 
if you would do your work in the world, you must 
take care of your body that has been matured to you 
by all the processes of life, and is without doubt the 
most wonderful, beautiful, and complicated machinery 
that is known to the human mind. Use the body 
and do not abuse it. Learn to go to sleep when you 
ought, if you would wake up as you ought. He who 
abuses his stomach insults his God and is guilty of an 
act of irreverence. The young person who brings on 
dyspepsia ought to be ashamed of himself. Every 
time you are sick it is certain that somebody has 
sinned, and it very likely is yourself. AA^ould you be 
beautiful, let good habits be your complexion- 
maker. Good air, fresh water, plenty of them, will 
paint your cheeks so that the color will not rub off. 
If you have a work to do, no matter what, keep your 



130 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



tools in order. Let there be no tampering with any 
of these splendid instruments that Time, God's great 
exponent, has been so long in fitting to your need. 
Keep the corns off your toes and jealousy out of your 
heart. Avoid tight shoes, tight lacing, and mean 
thoughts. Breathe deeply of truth, as of pure air. 
And then your work will be God's work, and you will 
accomplish it, whether it be making horseshoes or 
chiming rhymes, making bread or making laws. 

On bravely through the sunshine and the showers; 

Time hath his work to do and we have ours, — 

our own work, not somebody's else. 

Let us beware of the temptation to attend to our 
neighbor's garden patch more than to our own. I 
heard a young woman scolding the other day about 
the sparrows, "those murderous English sparrows that 
drive away our robins," while at that very minute 
there was a robin's wing on her own hat. 

I once heard, in a colored women's prayer-meet- 
ing away down in Florida, an "old mammy" wrestle 
with the Lord in prayer. Judging from information 
derived from the prayer, she was a hard-working 
washerwoman, oftentimes neglectful of her duties 
and unappreciative of her privileges. But slowly she 
rose on the ladder of confession to great confidences 
with the Eternal, and at last she reached a spiritual as 
well as a rhetorical climax, the sincerity of which was 
attested by abundant tears : "Oh, Lawd, help us keep 
ou' own do'h-steps clean, an' den ou' neighbo's will 
keep dere's clean f'om very shame." 



LIFE'S COMMISSION 



This hints at the central citadel of morals, the 
headquarters of the spiritual life. From within come 
Life's commissions, and from within must come the 
truest inspirations, the safest leadings. There are no 
infallible guides, but there are splendid stays, noble 
helps, divine encouragements to him who is in league 
with time, who joins hands with the universe, who 
becomes a partner with God and a fellow-laborer with 
Socrates, Buddha, and Jesus. 

To thine own self be true; 

And it must follow, as the night the day, 

Thou canst not then be false to any man. 

Yes, if you would do your work, be true to your- 
self ; true in the prosperity which I hope may await 
you ; true none the less in the adversity which doubt- 
less will sometimes overtake you all. Never mind 
results; devote yourself to principles. God will take 
care of consequences. He knows how to use the weak 
and to preserve the humble. On to your work! Let 
that work be truly done, and then no time, opposition, 
defeat, or unpopularity can crush either you or your 
work. 



THE LIFE IN COMMON 



ALL ARE XEEDED BY EACH OXE 

SozL' thy seed nor heed the reaper. 
Each one is his brothers keeper; 
If zi'e strive not for his zinnning. 
Sharers n'e in all his sinning. 

Chorus: 

All are needed by each one, 
All are needed by each one, 
Naught is fair or good alone, 
All arc needed by each one. 

Seek for good the zchole zi'orld over; 
That Zi'e search for zi'e discover, 
Children of one mother^ Nature, 
Kin of ours each feUozv-creature. 

Strength zve lend some load may lighten; 
Others' smiles our paths may brighten; 
Linked be all in one endeavor, 
Love shall rule the zvorld forever. 

Althea a. Ogden 



VIII 



THE LIFE IN COMMON 

All are needed by each one; 
Nothing is fair or good alone. 

— Emerson 

The poem from which you have selected your 
text is the text's most adequate sermon. You have 
selected the heart of what is perhaps Emerson's best 
known poem, whose title, "Each and All," is appeal, 
argument, and conclusion. In this poem the poet has 
shown us that the red-shirted workman in the field, 
the lowing heifer on the upland farm, the sparrow's 
note, the delicate shell on the sea-shore, the ground 
pine curling its pretty wreath, the violet's breath, pine 
cones, and acorns, all are necessary in order to give 
any one of them its meaning or its beauty. The great 
Napoleon at the head of his army stops to listen to 
the noon-day bell, which rings in response to the sex- 
ton's tugging at the rope. 

All are needed by each one. 

Once this lily-growing earth of ours was bare and 
dry, and enveloped in poisonous gases. Little, quiet, 
and silent things have worked away to make it what 
it now is. Darwin has shown us how the earth was 
prepared for man by the humble diligence of earth- 
worms. They were the first plowmen; they were the 

135 



136 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



first farmers; they helped make the soil which they 
afterward so successfully tilled. I cannot stop in 
the fairyland of science to tell how the wind and the 
rain, the dews and the sunshine, first gave the lichens 
and the mosses, and how these prepared the way for 
grasses and trees, or how the falling leaves, through 
unnumbered thousands of years, made the rich mold 
out of which grows the wheat that makes the bread 
for our daily food, and the cotton that makes the 
cloth for our daily wear, because I want to think with 
you chiefly of our large human relations. 

Last week, somewhere in Kansas, perhaps, a tired, 
unhappy farmer boy, unhappy because he had to leave 
his school before it was out, tired because those Kan- 
sas farms are so large and the furrows so long, plowed, 
and plowed, and plowed. This week the same boy will 
plant some corn or sow some wheat in that field that 
the flour may be made which next winter will make 
your breakfast attractive and your dinner splendid; 
but between that farmer boy in Kansas and the bread 
in your pantry there are many little links, each so 
unimportant, apparently, that you can scarcely find it, 
or finding it, you scarcely give it a thought; but 
destroy any one of these human links and your chain 
will be broken, your beefsteak will be delayed, or 
your bread will be wanting altogether. Think of the 
reaping, the threshing, the grinding of wheat, the 
grading and tunneling of railroads, the vigilant watch- 
man at the switches, the sweating firemen on the 
engines, the iron grasp of the engineer's hand on the 



THE LIFE IN COMMON 



throttle-valve as the monster goes puffing, roaring, 
blazing, into the night, over dizzy bridges, through 
weird forests, thus bringing you your breakfast 
biscuit. 

But you are needed by the farmer boy as much as 
the farmer boy is needed by you. He plows that the 
farm may be paid for. He sows the seed that some day 
he may go to school again ; or, perchance, that he may 
have money to build a house, white and small, on the 
great Kansas prairie, where he may bring a little wife 
who will plant hollyhocks in the front yard and sun- 
flowers, squashes, and tomatoes in the back yard, a 
little wife who will put eggs under the setting hens, 
and feed and love the chickens when they are hatched. 
And when, with this farmer boy grown man, the little 
wife begins to welcome babes into the home, the two 
will toil harder than ever in order that the new little 
boy may have better schooling than the father had 
and that the new little girl may see more of the world 
of life than the little mother ever did. 

The new little boy may go to college, though the 
father never went beyond the fourth reader in the 
district school house, built at the crossing of the 
roads on the wide, wide prairie, and the new little girl 
may see Europe, with its great buildings and noble 
pictures, though the little mother never but once went 
out of the county in which she lived, and then only 
as far as Topeka to visit the State Fair, where she 
saw such beautiful horses, such splendid cows, such 
wonderful patch-work quilts, such pianos, such great 



138 LOVE AND LOYALTY 

machines, and lovely pottery, such pretty engravings 
and costly books, and such crowds of people, that she 
never more could get them all out of her head, or 
better still, out of her heart. And the farm home, 
with the farmer husband, and the farmer children 
had a new meaning in her eyes. It was such a 
blessed week that it helped her do her churning, cook- 
ing, and scrubbing ever afterward. 

I say, this farmer boy could not build his house so 
white and small on the big prairie, and the farmer's 
wife could not find money to go to Topeka, if you 
were not at this end of the line needing the corn, the 
wheat, and the beef, the chickens, and the eggs they 
toiled for. 

Yes, "all are needed by each one," not only on the 
bread-and-butter, shoes-and-stockings-side of life, but 
on the love and thought side of life. Many gentle 
things come from far-off and humble sources. How 
we like the legends and stories, the myths and fables 
from the older world of fancy and miracle, which tell 
us how the trees and the flowers, the birds and the 
beasts, are all linked and locked with us in what is 
beautiful and tender. 

We like, with Whittier and his "old Welsh neigh- 
bor over the way," the story of the merciful bird, 
who, drop by drop, carries the water to quench some 
bit of the fire that consumes the souls of sin ; whence 
the robin is called "Bron rhuddyn," the "breast- 
burned bird." We like, too, that other legend, given 
us by Longfellow, of the little bird who tried with his 



THE LIFE IN COMMON 



139 



little bill to pull out the cruel nails that fastened Jesus 
to the cross, and ever since that time the cross-bill has 
worn the crossed beak and carried marks of blood 
upon his little body. And we like the still older story 
how, when all the world was in the water, it was a 
dove that went out and found the olive branch that 
gave hope to Noah, riding in his ark. 

The woods of Indiana, southern Illinois, and Ken- 
tucky, are splendid every springtime with the dog- 
wood in bloom, great tree bouquets, blazing like a 
fragrant fire with most beautiful and delicate red. 
The old missionaries of the Catholic church used to 
try to interest the Indians in the Christian story by 
telling them that the dogwood once bore milk-white 
blossoms, but that on Crucifixion Day, which, accord- 
ing to tradition, occurred in the early spring, it blushed 
with shame over the cruel act, and has borne red 
blossoms ever since. 

Have you ever noticed how the poplar leaf and 
the leaves of all the aspen family are forever quiver- 
ing? Even in the stillest day of midsummer, there is 
a tremble and a flutter of the leaves of the poplar tree. 
Botany teaches that this is because of the peculiar 
shape of the petiole and the way the leaf is fastened 
to the tree, but the old monks used to teach that the 
cross was made of the wood of this tree, and that, on 
account of the cruel deed, all the poplars in the forest 
shuddered, and the sympathy had continued ever 
since. Lowell, our brave American poet, rational 
and radical in his thought, sings the same truth of 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



universal sympathy in a grander fashion in that great 
poem, 'The Present Crisis," which was one of the 
earliest bugle calls of our great war for freedom. 
Thirteen 3^ears before Abraham Lincoln issued his 
call for the first troops to free the slave, Lowell echoed 
the cry of the bondsman and proclaimed terror to the 
slave-holder in these lines : 

When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth's 
aching breast 

Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west, 
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him 
climb 

To that awful verge of manhood, as the energ>^ sublime 
Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of 
Time. 

Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous 
throe, 

When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's systems to and fro ; 
At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start. 
Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips apart. 
And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the 
Future's heart. 

For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along, 
Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right or 
wrong ; 

Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanit\''s vast frame 
Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or 
shame; 

In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim. 

My dear children, there are many things to indicate 
that this is a cold, selfish world, and many people will 
tell you that life is a scramble, a rush for the best 



THE LIFE IN COMMON 



141 



places, and that he who can get a front seat is best 
off; but don't you beheve it, for all these beautiful 
legends and a whole world full of more beautiful 
facts go to prove the truth, that 

All are needed by each one, 
Nothing is fair or good alone. 

This is a truth which the great Herbert Spencer, a 
man who has done more, perhaps, to give the present 
generation foundation for great and inspiring 
thoughts concerning man and religion than any other 
person of our times, states in this way : ''No one 
can be perfectly free till all are free. No one can be 
perfectly moral till all are moral. No one can be per- 
fectly happy till all are happy." 

Now the most beautiful thing about it all is, when 
we come to think of it, that we are glad it is so. 
We do not want to be happy, do we, until all are 
happy? We would be ashamed to suffer no shame 
with the disgraced. We love the story of Jesus 
because he chose to share the lot of the unhappy. In 
our studies we gloried in the triumphs of Giordano 
Bruno, of Michael Servetus, and the Socinii, because 
they despised the freedom that left others in bonds; 
because they were glad to die that others might be 
more free. And we felt that Priestley, driven to the 
wilds of Pennsylvania, was more fortunate than the 
mob who felt free to drive him there. 

There is a deathless story told of one Androcles, a 
Roman slave, who fled from bondage and hid himself 
in a cave. While there, to his horror, he saw the cave 



142 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



darkened by a lion whose den he had unwittingly 
entered. Tremblingly he awaited his fate, ready to 
accept the death he nevertheless preferred to slavery; 
but, to his surprise, the lion, instead of pouncing 
upon him, as he expected, crawled to him and held 
up a sorely inflamed foot, moaning piteously. The 
slave discovered, deeply embedded within the paw, a 
cruel thorn, which had caused great inflammation and 
much festering. Androcles extracted the thorn to the 
great relief of the poor beast, who showed every sign 
of gratitude within his power. Weeks after, the slave 
was recaptured, and, according to the cruel customs 
of Rome, he was to be given to the lions for the 
amusement of the multitude in the amphitheater. 
The crowd was assembled, the signal given, and the 
door of the lion's den thrown open ; the lion made one 
fierce bound toward his victim; but suddenly his man- 
ner changed, and, instead of pouncing upon the 
astonished man, he licked his hands and feet, rubbing 
against him with all the delight which a dog shows on 
finding its master. Androcles recognized the lion of 
the cave, and the lion recognized the friend who had 
helped him in his extremity. 

There is deep philosophy in this story. The 
world, that seems so cruel and unkind, recognizes its 
helpers. It is helpful to the helping, tender to the 
tender. It is cruel only to the selfish; the unselfish 
find themselves paid from within. 

A miser was offered as much gold dust as he could 
hold in his two hands. He, anxious to get as much 



THE LIFE IN COMMON 



143 



as possible, spread wide his fingers so as to get big 
handfuls, and lo ! all the gold dust ran through, and 
he got nothing at all. So does this world treat the 
selfish. The envious are suspicious, the greedy go 
hungry, the selfish are lonely, the self-indulgent are 
miserable, though they count their wealth by millions 
and lie down and rise up in luxury. 

I wish I could make you understand not only that 
you need everybody and everything, but also that you 
are needed by everybody and everything. Robert 
Browming has a pretty poem which tells of a bard 
who was singing for a prize to the accompaniment of 
his lyre. Suddenly, in the midst of his contest, one of 
the strings of his lyre snapped, and disgrace and 
defeat were imminent, when a cricket alighted upon 
the instrument and. 

With her chirrup, low and sweet, 
Sav'd the singer from defeat, 

by sustaining the note which his broken string failed 
to give. At the close of the contest, so grateful was 
the poet to his little helper that he had a life-size 
statue of himself with his lyre cut in marble, and on 
the lyre he perched his cricket partner, ever to keep a 
memorial of the ser^'ice. 

How often such a service is rendered by the little 
ones, the weak ones, we can never tell. One of the 
curiosities at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago 
was a full-sized reproduction of La Rabida. the mon- 
astery near Palos, where the weary and almost dis- 
couraged Columbus once happened unexpectedly to 



144 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



find the good monk Juan Perez, who became inter- 
ested in his scheme and promptly interested Queen 
Isabella and others. John Fiske is inclined to accept 
the account which says that Christopher Columbus 
knocked at the gates of this monastery for the sake of 
asking for some bread and water for his little twelve- 
year-old boy. If this story is true, little Diego 
Columbus was the cricket perched on the lyre of the 
explorer, that saved the music and won the prize. 
He helped discover America. 

Great streams flow from little springs. We all 
have a note to carr}^ If we refuse to sound it, there 
is somewhere a chord incomplete. 

I like a short story, published not long ago, of a 
little child in Arkansas, who, in trying to teach another 
little child how to make a peculiar kind of brown 
bread, reconciled two angry fathers, prevented an ugly 
duel, and made friends and neighbors of those who 
were deadly enemies. It is a good story, but nothing 
compared to what the author of that story, a woman 
of Iowa, has done in real life. She read of the 
hungry thousands in Russia, the grim famine that 
threatened to starve whole communities before the 
new crop would come, and her woman heart said, ''I 
can do something," So she started out among the 
farmers of Iowa and said to them, "You have no 
money, but give me corn, give me wheat, give me 
flour, give me potatoes." She went to the railroads 
and said, "Give me cars to carry these provisions to 
the seacoast." She went to the government and said, 



THE LIFE IN COMMON 



145 



"Give me a ship to carry this food to the starving men 
and women of Russia." And the Iowa farmers filled 
the freight cars with corn, the railroads hauled it to 
the sea, the good ship ''Indiana" carried it across the 
ocean, and they had a great thanksgiving service at 
the Russian fort of Libau. When the first train-load 
of food started out for the hungry district it was 
covered with the American and Russian flags, the 
bands were playing, and there were shouts and sobs, 
prayers and songs. 

The work that was begun in Iowa was taken up 
in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, 
and elsewhere. All this was due to the lone woman 
who wrote "The Arkansas Story" and "The Loaf of 
Peace," over the pen name of Octave Thanet. It is 
thought that enough corn was sent to Russia in this 
way to keep fifty thousand people alive until the crops 
came to their help. How little it was, for each one to 
do, and how easy it would be to keep the world from 
want if only we all remembered that 

All are needed by each one, 

and that 

Nothing is fair or good alone. 

All these things seem big things when they are 
done. I want you to believe that the little things are 
worth doing, because they, too, are "needed by each 
one," even when they remain little, so little that they 
are never heard of, so little that men can never dis- 
cover any results, good or bad. We all have an offer- 



146 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



ing of some kind that we might make, Hke the old 
man in this poem which I found in a child's magazine : 

An old man wheeling a heavy cart, 

Pausing oft to rest on his weary way. 

While western sunbeams in show'r of gold. 
O'er the wrinkled features in glory play: 

Fair as a sunbeam across his path 

Darts a merry child in his boyish glee, 

Pausing abruptly at figure bent 

With the tottering step and trembling knee; 

Poor old man ! And the wee boy stopped, 

Sorrowfully shaking his curly head; 
Then a happy thought to the baby came — 
"Just take a bite of my apple," he said. 

The old man stopped at the boy's request, 
Whilst blessing the dear little hand for aye; 

Then took up his load with a lighter heart 
As the child went singing back to his play. 

You can give "a bite of your apple" and make the 
load a little lighter all day long to some weary worker. 
If we w^ould all give ''a bite of our apple," there 
would be no starving children in Russia or anywhere 
else, and there would be very much more contented- 
ness and kindliness in the world everywhere. 

Turgenieff, a Russian poet, in one of his poems in 
prose, tells of meeting a beggar who asked for alms. 
The poet looked for a penny in all his pockets and 
could find none, and then in his confusion took the 
beggar's dirty hand and said, "Don't be vexed with 
me, brother, I have nothing with me, brother." The 
beggar raised his blood-shot eyes, his blue lips smiled, 



THE LIFE IN COMMON 



147 



and he returned the pressure of the chilled fingers as 
he stammered, ''Never mind, brother, thank you for 
this. This too was a gift." Perhaps it was a better 
gift than the pennies the poet might have had in his 
pocket. The gift of a kindly word, the gift of a 
cordial smile, of a kind heart, is a benediction. A 
genial face, a kindly voice, a willing hand, a helpful 
soul make one a millionaire, though he be as poor as 
the ''Raggedy Man," the boys' friend, that Whitcomb 
Riley has helped the boy to describe: 

W'y, The Raggedy Man — he's 'ist so good 
He splits the kindlin' an' chops the wood, 
An' nen he spades in our garden too, — 
An' does most things 'at boys can't do. 
He clumbed clean up in our big tree 
An' shook a' apple down fer me — 
An' nother'n too, fer 'Lizabuth Ann — 
An' nother'n, too, fer The Raggedy Man. — 
Ain't he a' awful kind Raggedy Man? 
Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man!" 

I wish I could make you believe that our beautiful 
text grows more and more beautiful as we go from 
things to thoughts, as we think less of body and more 
of mind, and forget the hunger of stomach in trying 
to satisfy the hunger of heart. He does well who 
shares an apple, but he does better who shares a 
thought. It is easier to go without a coat than with- 
out a friend. Better have a sore foot than a sore 
heart. And the noblest truth in this noble motto of 
yours is that not a thought is lost, not a wish is 
wasted. 



148 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



Thus we come to think of prayer, of God, and of 
the never-ending life. Every wish helps to make a 
will. To seek is to half find. To hope is to begin 
already to live that life. If we are ''needed by each 
one," we are also needed by that all we call God. The 
cricket and the bard belong to his orchestra, and the 
one no more than the other can neglect his notes with- 
out marring the great music. 

I have not talked to you much about heaven and 
the beyond, in our lessons, not because I have not 
great hopes, but because I have, because all my hopes 
rest on the thought of the value and the beauty of the 
Now. The heaven that is to be is the heaven that 
begins when the boy gives "a bite of his apple." The 
heaven that I believe in is the heaven whose near gate 
is through that which a ''Raggedy Man" may enter, 
when 

He's the goodest man ever you saw. 

I believe in the high hopes of Easter Day. There 
is a link that binds the life beyond to the life here. 
When we cease to be here, we shall begin to be there, 
where our dear ones have gone already. But now we 
are here, and so we will believe that we are needed 
here. And there, as here. 

Nothing is fair or good alone, 

for everything is linked over there as here. Indeed 
there is no there or here, for all is one. 

We have talked of John the Baptist, that weird, 
wild man who called himself a "voice crying in the 



THE LIFE IN COMMON 



149 



desert." It was a voice soon silenced, but Jesus heard 
it, and he took up the strain and sounded the note 
John tried for and could not reach. I wonder if you 
can understand the following parable. I know not 
whether it is more science or more poetry, for it is 
both. 

The voice of one crying in the wilderness, crying out in 
lone despair, seen only by the hard blue sky, by the sands 
lying parched and glazed in the unchecked glare of the sun. 

The sands heeded not. 

Verdureless, ragged, abrupt, defiant, stood the mountains 
round about. In mocking, uncompleted fragments, they 
echoed back. 

The desert was still again. All was desolate, unchanged, 
silent, and the one who had raised his protest against the world 
sank exhausted into the dreamless slumber we call Death. 

The stars came out, cold, unpitying, hard as diamonds, and 
looked down upon him. 

Had he cried out in vain? 

Is anything created out of nothing, to no purpose, and only 
to be resolved back into nothing? 

The vibration of his voice died not away. 

The reverberation loosened a grain of sand from the moun- 
tain side. Another followed it, and others. A mighty stone 
slipped away. An avalanche was started. 

From beneath the foundation of the mountain burst forth 
a spring of water, which before had gone silent, unknown to 
the sea. 

Was it there for naught? 

And where the stream flowed down into the desert, there 
came greenness and birds and beasts. Men came, and they 
passed jestingly by the white bones of him who had cried out. 
And they reclaimed the land, and with the waters they drove 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



back the waves of sand, as men with dikes of earth drive back 
the waves of the sea. And the desert blossomed as the rose. 

The white bones of him who had long ago cried out in the 
wilderness, lost their semblance in the Chemistry of Change. 

But had he lived in vain? 

Come, dear children, again give me your hands, 
for I need you more than you need me. Childhood 
endows age. Youth enriches the gray hairs of the 
old. We all have a voice, weak and small though it 
may be, and life to each of us at times seems a desert. 
I say seems, because there is no place where we may 
not loosen the sands which will give way to another 
and another, and eventually find the spring and make 
room for the brook that shall cause the wilderness to 
bloom. 



MORE STATELY MANSIONS 



This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, 
Sails the unshadowed main, — 
The venturous bark that flings 
On the sweet summer wind its purple wings 
In gulfs efvchanted, where the Siren sings, 

And coral reefs lie hare. 
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming 
hair. 

Year after year beheld the silent toil 
That spread his lustrous coil; 
Still, as the spiral grew, 
He left the past year's dwelling for the new. 
Stole with soft step its shining archway through, 

Built up its idle door, 
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old 
no more. 

Build thee more stately mansions, 0 my soul, 

As the swift seasons roll! 

Leave thy low-vaulted past! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast. 

Till thou at length art free. 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! 
■Oliver Wendell Holmes, in 'The Chambered Nautilus" 



IX 



MORE STATELY MANSIONS 

Build thee more stately mansions, 0 my Soul. — Oliver 
Wendell Holmes 

I remember your delight in the story of the little 
creature who, as fast as he outgrew the dimensions of 
the biggest house he had been able to build for him- 
self at any given time, was willing to crawl quietly 
out of his cramped quarters, close up the door of the 
home that now fettered him, and proceed to build for 
himself a new house more adequate to his present 
needs; and it was your pleasure in the study of this 
marvelous little animal that led you to select this line 
from Holmes's ''Chambered Nautilus" as your class 
motto and as a text for my class sermon. 

In 1880 the school children of Cincinnati held an 
Oliver Wendell Holmes birthday celebration, and the 
genial doctor wrote them a letter in which he said, 
"If you will remember me by The Chambered Nauti- 
lus,' 'The Promise,' and 'The Living Temple,' your 
memories will be a monument I shall think more of 
than bronze or marble." It was this letter of the poet 
that led us to explore the beauties of the poem, and 
the still greater beauty of the thing. The lines of 
Holmes are so polished that they stand out clear and 
bright, but not so polished are they as the glistening 
walls of this house of the little mollusk from tropic 

153 



154 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



sea which I hold in my hand. The stanzas of 
Holmes are thought-laden, but more suggestive still 
is this poem of the deep sea, for it represents thoughts 
too deep for words. 

Let us first try, then, to go back of the poem to the 
thing, and then back of the thing to that mystery of 
life which runs through all nature and is back of all 
things, linking your life and mine not only with sea- 
shells but with sunshine, stars, poets, and the mystery 
which we revere as God; the power from whom all 
things come, in whom all things are, to whom all 
things tend. 

Our Pearly Nautilus has always appealed to the 
fancy of the poet and challenged the admiration of 
the naturalist. His name, which means mariner, or 
sailor, holds a pretty myth, which we will not pursue, 
because the plain scientific facts are still prettier and 
more curious. In youth this little creature finds him- 
self a soft lump of unprotected jelly-like material, 
lying at the mercy of every prowling creature of the 
deep. There is nothing for him to do but lie quiet 
and cautious in some sheltered cove while he goes to 
work to build, out of minute particles of matter, little 
stores secreted from the salt water, cemented by air 
and sunshine, a pearl house over his back into which 
he may retreat from danger, and at the door of which 
he may sit (if that is the way a little "mouth-foot," 
or cephalopod, takes his ease) and gather his dinner 
from whatever toothsome thing passes within reach 
of his toothless mouth, eating and growing until, in 



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155 



due time, he has hterally grown too big for his house. 
But, instead of abandoning it entirely, he sHps out, 
walls up the little room which he has left, and builds 
on a new main part in front which he enjoys for a 
season; and, when age brings size and strength too 
great for the second house, he again slips out, walls it 
up, and constructs for himself a third; and thus the 
process goes on until the beautiful spiral shell is com- 
pleted. 

On the outside it is all symmetry and unity; and 
not until the scientist, years hence, perchance, picks 
up the beautiful shell and splits it through the middle, 
does he discover that the shell is not one, but many 
houses, and that the little builder in the sea never 
occupied but one at a time, in each case withdrawing 
for the sake of more ample quarters, the last being 
always the noblest house. But, as if the little animal 
were grateful for the service rendered by the smaller 
dwellings, a line of communication, the purpose of 
which science is as yet scarcely able to tell, runs like 
a slender thread of memory through all the apart- 
ments. I have said the rooms were empty, but they 
are not wholly so; for these sealed chambers, once 
the home of the little sailor, seem to be charged with 
a gas that makes more buoyant the little life-boat. 
The earlier books used to say that these chambers 
could be filled and emptied at pleasure, and thus the 
little house could rise to the surface or sink to the 
bottom at the will of the captain on the forecastle; 
this little thread of tissue which runs from fore to aft 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



being supposed to answer to the tube running through 
a series of railroad cars, by means of which the con- 
ductor can open or shut the valves of the air-brake at 
will. But the later books are not so sure about this, 
and scientists are now inclined to regard this story 
as a relic of that larger one in which the earlier poets 
delighted: how this little sailor, when the weather 
was fine and the water smooth, could come to the 
surface, spread his little sail, and travel by the help 
of the wind. 

So here we have that which stirred Oliver Wen- 
dell Holmes to write in the short meter of song what 
I have clumsily and inadequately told in the long 
meter of prose. Beautiful are the verses, but not so 
beautiful or wonderful as the thing. 

Here we have another illustration of what I never 
tire of saying, especially to children, that science is 
beautiful poetry, more beautiful than anything we 
find in the books. Nature is the great Poet; indeed, 
the word ''poet" originally meant maker, creator, 
and, of course, the most wonderful poems are those 
produced by the great Maker, the Infinite Creator. 
This ''ship of pearl," which the "wandering sea" has 
"cast from her lap forlorn," is neither more nor less 
marvelous than mJllions of other things that tempt 
your interest and are anywhere and everywhere ready 
to reward your studies, enrich your minds, and sweeten 
your lives. From the little fly upon the wall to the 
twinkling star in the sky are scattered the wonder- 
poems, so simple and so easy that little children need 



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157 



never tire of them, so profound and so great that the 
wise philosophers grow gray without exhausting 
them. 

This ''house of pearl" is the product of a stupid 
little animal, very stupid indeed. He is a sort of 
cousin to the oyster, and probably the oyster is the 
smarter of the two; and still how wonderful and inter- 
esting the Nautilus is. You have read Kingsley's 
"Water Babies," I hope, and you may be sure that the 
more wonderful half of the book is the ''really-truly" 
half. The most interesting things that Tom saw in 
his journey to the world's end were such as the scient- 
ists have found at the bottom of the sea and in the 
earth; and Charles Kingsley was able to write such a 
delightful book for children because he was a man 
who had eyes to see the marvels about him, or who 
was, at least, willing to learn of those who had open 
eyes. He has been able to tell us things quite as inter- 
esting in almost as delightful a way about a piece of 
chalk, the coal in the grate, a piece of slate-pencil, as 
about the water babies, because he thought it worth 
while to study those things which most people are 
glad to step on, avoid, or get rid of. 

Many years ago, when I used to travel much as 
a missionary, I had to drive all one dark Saturday 
night through the pine woods of Michigan in order 
to get to my Sunday morning appointment. The 
liveryman gave me as a driver a little German boy 
about fourteen years old, by the name of ''Gus." I 
was assured that he was a good driver and a smart 



158 LOVE AND LOYALTY 

little chap, who would get there all right. It was a 
long night's ride through thirty miles of pine woods, 
and we talked of many things in order to keep our- 
selves awake. Once Gus said he thought a fire-bug 
was the ''most curiousest thing in the world;" and a 
little while after, as the stars came out through the 
high tops of the trees, between the cracks of the wild, 
scudding clouds still higher up, he was inclined to 
change his mind and think that a star was the "most 
curiousest thing in the world;" and he wanted me to 
explain to him how it was that the stars did not fall 
down, or fall up, or get all mixed up somehow. And 
when I could not tell him, he wondered if it might not 
be that they were all mixed up, anyway, all a going 
which-way, and we did not know enough to know the 
difference. Fortunately, I could assure him that this 
is not the case; that the stars do not get mixed up, 
but all keep their right places. Then Gus and I, in the 
dark grim woods, fell to wondering, until I think we 
were both almost afraid, so solemn was the great 
mystery. 

Perhaps to drive away this sense of awe, so heavy 
for a little boy to carry whose business it was to keep 
the track in the dark woods at midnight, he asked me 
what was the "most stupidest thing in the world." I 
did not know, but he thought it was a calf ; "they 
are so stupid that if you try to drive a lot of them, 
even to get a drink of milk, no two of them will go 
the same way at the same time." I was not very- 
bright that night, not so bright as Gus, and I did 



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159 



not know what to say to him when he asked me if I 
knew of anything *'any more stupider than a calf." 
But since then I have thought of many things more 
stupid than a calf; for instance, a boy or girl who 
goes through the world never looking for curious 
things, never asking strange questions, never trying 
to get acquainted with bugs and stars, trees and birds, 
and all kinds of things, as Gus did. And I think 
grown up men and women who are afraid of science, 
who do not know that this pearl-building Nautilus 
and all his *'mouth-footed" and "stomach-footed" 
relatives are little texts in some of the chapters of 
God's great book of revelation, are more stupid than 
the calf, because they have minds to tell them just 
such things if they would only use them, and the calf 
has not, so of course it is not his fault. 

The wisest men are those who study near things 
and who remember that all the poems of the great 
Maker are worth studying. The knowledge of these 
nature-poems makes men gentle and kind, truthful 
and noble, like Agassiz or Darwin, or like Owen, the 
wise scientist who wrote the first careful study of our 
chambered Nautilus. 

It was fifty years ago 

In the pleasant month of May, 
In the beautiful Pays de Vaud, 

A child in its cradle lay. 
And Nature, the old nurse, took 

The child upon her knee, 
Saying: "Here is a story-book 

Thy Father has written for thee. 



i6o 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



"Come wander with me," she said, 

"Into regions yet untrod; 
And read what is still unread 
In the manuscripts of God." 

And he wandered away and away 
With Nature, the dear old nurse. 
Who sang to him night and day 
The rhymes of the universe. 

And whenever the way seemed long. 

Or his heart began to fail, 
She would sing a more wonderful song, 

Or tell a more marvelous tale. 

So she kept him still a child, 

And would not let him go, 
Though at times his heart beat wild 

For the beautiful Pays de Vaud; 

Though at times he heard in his dreams 

The Ranz des Vaches of old, 
And the rush of mountain streams 
From glaciers clear and cold; 

And the mother at home said, "Hark! 

For his voice I listen and yearn; 
It is growing late and dark. 

And my boy does not return!" 

So says Longfellow, in his story of Agassiz. But 
let us get back to our little poem in pearl, that we may 
be ready for "the conclusion of the whole matter," 
as the preachers say, before my sermon gets too long 
for it. This foolish little mollusk should not receive 
too much credit, for he but obeyed the impulse, strong 
in all of us, to get to the front, the desire to see and 
hear all that is going. He yielded to the law that is 



MORE STATELY MANSIONS i6i 

back of everything, the same law that makes a butter- 
fly out of a grub, a frog out of a tadpole; the law that 
impels the chick to break the egg; the law that taught 
man first to build his wigwam, then his cabin, then 
his cottage, and at last a mansion or a palace. You 
read something of this law in the polished pebble as 
in the beautiful shell. The acorn teaches it, the oak 
exemplifies it. It is as great as the universe, as old as 
time. It is gentle enough to color a rose, mighty 
enough to make a world. I love to think of it as 
God's beautiful law working in our own bodies, shap- 
ing our own minds as everywhere else. It is the 
beautiful law of evolution, the law of unfolding, that 
which makes things grow from weak to strong, from 
simple to complex, from good to better everywhere. 
All living things must grow thus or die and fall to 
pieces, to be made up again after a better pattern and 
for better uses. 

I said this law works everywhere; but sometimes 
man is stupidly afraid of it and tries to avoid it, or 
even to change it or put an end to it altogether, and 
then comes trouble. Especially does trouble in religion 
often come in this way. Men have sometimes found 
themselves in what at the time seemed a beautiful 
temple, or a beautiful book has been given them, or 
they have been taught by a noble leader, and they 
have said : ''There can never be a better temple than 
this; this is the holiest place in all the universe; there 
can never be any wiser book than this ; this is the most 
sacred page ever written or that ever will be written ; 



l62 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



and this is the best teacher, the only true one." They 
have been so sure that they have determined never to 
look any farther, never to change their minds about 
any of these things. You know they used to be so 
sure of these matters that they would put people to 
death if they suggested anything different. That is 
why they burned Giordano Bruno at Rome and Mi- 
chael Servetus at Geneva, and many others. This is 
what we call superstition; it is trying to stand still, 
as the word implies, in a world that is on the move. 
Everything is going, and we must go too, or else get 
out of the way; otherwise we become a stumbling- 
block, a hindrance to others, a misery to ourselves. 

Men not heeding this law of the universe, forget- 
ting the lesson of the chambered Nautilus, have gone 
to work to build them a thought-house to their liking, 
one that fitted them in every respect just as the earlier 
shell-house of the Nautilus fitted him. And then they 
have said, "This is good enough. Do not trouble us 
more about building thought-houses." They have 
tried to stay inside the little thought-house in spite 
of growth, in spite of the beautiful outside world and 
the abundance of new material for building new 
houses. This kind of thought-house which people 
want to remain in unchanged forever is called a 
"creed." Can you think how curious a place for us 
to live in would be the pentagonal or five-cornered 
thought-house of John Calvin, or, still worse, the 
wild jumble of words in the Athanasian creed? And 
yet men try to stay in these houses by doubling up. 



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163 



twisting, packing, and squeezing themselves in every 
way possible. A creed is last year's cell made to do 
duty this year. 

A man who tries to live inside of an old creed is a 
chicken who means always to enjoy life inside the 
eggshell. It was good enough once; why not good 
enough all the time? If it was big enough last week, 
it is big enough this week. No, not if you have had a 
week's healthy growth meantime. 

When I tell you that all the Presbyterians, Trini- 
tarians, Unitarians, and all the other kinds of *'arians" 
came into the world in this way and are trying to stay 
in the world largely in this way, living not only in 
last-year houses but in last-century houses, shells 
many hundred years old, and that the Methodists, 
Baptists, Universalists, and all the other ''ists" have 
their little shells in which they are sometimes uncom- 
fortably crowded, being determined to stay in them 
because they were once good places, large, roomy, and 
beautiful, and they are afraid that it is cold and wild 
outside and they will never get other places as good, 
you will understand why it is that I wanted you to 
get clear in your minds the difference between 
"creed," as used by the churches, and conviction. One 
is the belief of yesterday, the other the belief of 
today; one is a last year's shell, the other a this 
year's house; one, to come back to our chambered 
Nautilus, is closed up in front, is a dead cell; the 
other is open in front, ready to catch fresh breezes, 
note changes, and welcome new growth. This is why 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



the line from Holmes is a worthy motto for your 
class and a fitting climax for your confirmation 
studies. 

And now are we ready for the full text of the last 
stanza ? 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

As the swift season's roll ! 

Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at lengh art free, 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea ! 

How shall we build these "more stately mansions," 
and by what method shall we make each new "temple 
nobler than the last?" The first lesson I would urge 
is a lesson of courage; when you are older we will 
call it "trust," when in the glory of old age we will 
call it "faith," but all these words mean the same 
thing; they all mean that which dares because it 
believes there are better things farther on. Do not 
be foolish enough to think that you have the ocean in 
your little pint measure, or that the sky has come 
down to arch your little cell alone, or that the sun 
has given all its brightness to paint your little pearl; 
beautiful as it is, there is more pearl-stuff left outside. 

Believe me, life and growth, to you as to this 
mollusk, are on the outer line of being. Keep your 
minds out of doors. "There are new truths yet to 
break upon you from God's word," said Parson Rob- 
inson to our pilgrim forefathers as they were about 



MORE STATELY MANSIONS 165 

to sail from Leyden to Plymouth. "The continent is 
farther on," said Columbus to his discontented sailors 
who wanted to stop and hunt for land when they 
came to green weeds in the Sargasso Sea. "Forget- 
ting the things that are behind, pressing forward to 
the things that are before," said Paul. These are 
all youth's commissions to be brave in the search for 
truth. Have courage, my dear children! Live for 
the future, trust it. It has a place for you, a work 
for you to do, a house for you to live in, but you 
must build it like the Nautilus — of earth, air, water, 
and sunshine; you must build it through your own 
nature, out of the secretions of your own being; and 
as to the empty cells, the air-chambers wherein once 
the living creature dwelt, they are of some use to a mol- 
lusk, perhaps, but they seem to be of less use as life 
gets along into higher forms. There are many more 
chambered cells among fossils than now belong to 
living species. There are things which are useful, 
beautiful, indispensable one day, which another day 
may find as useless as a broken eggshell is to the 
chicken. The chief thing for the chicken to believe in 
is its beak, the important thing to trust is the leg-and- 
wing instinct; let him peck away, and, when the time 
comes, let him stretch his little legs, and spread his 
little wings, and some time he will prove that through 
all his cramped and narrow life there ran a holy 
meaning; over his darkness, loneliness, and apparent 
thrall there brooded a purpose, a providence, a love 
which in due time demonstrated that it was both love 



i66 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



I 



and wisdom. A friend sent me the other day some 
rhymes of a Massachusetts high-school girl seven- 
teen years old. I thought them good enough to print 
in Unity, and I give them to you to close my 
plea for courage as the first condition of growth. 

Three long weeks had the mother hen 
Sat on her nest in the hay; 
Now she turns her eggs with tender care, 
For the chickens will hatch today. 

Little chick in the egg is not very old, 

Of course he's not very wise; 
And he views what little life he's had, 

With discontented surprise. 

"Surely this is not my proper sphere ; 

I've no room to grow ! 
I, a chicken with wings and feet — 
To be cramped in a hard shell, so ! 

"Of what possible use are beak and eyes 
To me, doubled up like a ball? 
'Tis torture to know that I have the things 
When I cannot use them at all. 

"Never was any creature, I'm sure, 
So sorely fettered and pressed." 
How should he know that a dozen more 
Lay under his mother's breast? 

His murmurings end with a lusty peck 

At the shell which holds him fast. 
When lo ! the wondrous light breaks in, 

And he finds himself free at last. 

Balancing on his feeble claws, 
He gazes above and below, — 



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167 



"Was it for such a world as this 
That I was shut up to grow?" 

He nestled under his mother's wing, 

Thinking little enough, I ween, 
That her love had hovered him all the while 

With only a shell between. 

And so, dear friends, when things are wrong, 

And seem to go ill — not well ; 
Just think of the love that is brooding o'er all 

And wait till you've chipped your shell. 

I have urged upon you this lesson of courage, 
because I am not afraid it will lead you to reckless- 
ness or land you in flippant irreverence. Would you 
''build more stately mansions" for the soul, you must 
never forget that your little bark floats in an infinite 
sea, and that your little dome is built out of measure- 
less sky-stuff and painted with the long and swift 
pencils of light shot out of the heart of the central 
sun, whose brilliancy dazzles the mind as it does the 
eye. 

Let our mansions be ever domed with reverence. 
When the great Agassiz met his pupils for the first 
time on the island of Penikese, in that great summer- 
school, where they were to study the mysteries of the 
beach, the marvels of land and water, he began his 
work by asking the class to bow their heads with him 
in reverent awe in the thought of the mighty source 
of all these marvels, the Giver of life and all its teem- 
ing possibilities of thought. The poet Whittier has 
interpreted this occasion to us, and I would you might 



i68 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



know this poem well, for it would, perhaps, help you 
remember that never were stately mansions built by 
the undevout. The thought of the philosopher, as 
well as that of the child, ends with the thought of 
God. 

Said the Master to the youth : 
"We have come in search of truth, 
Trying with uncertain key 
Door by door of mystery; 
We are reaching, through His laws. 
To the garment-hem of Cause, 
Him, the endless, unbegun, 
The Unnamable, the One 
Light of all our light the Source, 
Life of life, and Force of force. 
As with fingers of the blind, 
We are groping here to find 
What the hieroglyphics mean 
Of the Unseen in the seen. 
What the Thought which underlies 
Nature's masking and disguise, 
What it is that hides beneath 
Blight, and bloom and birth and death. 
By past efforts unavailing, 
Doubt and error, loss and failing. 
Of our weakness made aware, 
On the threshold of our task 
Let us light and guidance ask. 
Let us pause in silent prayer!" 
Then the Master in his place 
Bowed his head a little space. 
And the leaves by soft airs stirred, 
Lapse of wave and cry of bird 
Left the solemn hush unbroken 



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169 



Of that wordless prayer unspoken, 
While its wish, on earth unsaid, 
Rose to heaven interpreted. 
As, in life's best hours, we hear 
By the spirit's finer ear 
His low voice within us, thus 
The All-Father heareth us; 
And his holy ear we pain 
With our noisy words and vain. 
Not for Him our violence 
Storming at the gates of sense; 
His the primal language, his 
The eternal silences ! 

But the last and best thing I have to say about 
''building a more stately mansion" is what the life of 
the mollusk never reached. He builded for himself 
only; but a stately soul-mansion must be builded for 
service, not to self but to others. My dear children, 
be of use in this world, and its infinite resources are 
at your disposal ; be selfish and mean, and the world 
is barren, a narrow, stingy place that withholds from 
you what you most crave. My little friend Gus, the 
boy driver in the pine woods of Michigan, bemoaned 
his lack of education; he had never got beyond the 
second reader in school, he said. But when, in the 
pitchy darkness of midnight, the horses lost their way, 
struck a tree and broke a tug, the little fourteen-year- 
old boy succeeded in taking the check-rein from one 
part of the harness and repairing the damage to the 
other part, and thus we were enabled to continue our 
way. I thought he had an education which many a 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



college graduate misses, and with the humble tool of 
service he was all unconsciously building a statelier 
mansion for his soul. 

One day as Tamberlik, a famous tenor, was walk- 
ing through a bird market at Madrid, he suddenly 
stopped, and, for a bank note of a thousand francs, 
or about two hundred dollars, bought up the entire 
twittering colony. He then opened the doors of the 
cages, and as the astonished songsters found their 
wings and sought their home in the air, he cried, 
*'Go and be free, my brothers!" Edith Thomas has 
celebrated this act in song : 

Cage-door is open — sing ! 

Pure gladness ! fly southward, fly northward, 
Each one in your turn carry spring, 

Faithful, unbribed, undelaying, 
Alike to peasant and king. 

Cage-door is open — fly ! 

Whistler, twitterer, warbler, 
And you that but sob or cry, 

You, the slumber-smooth ringdove, 
Out, to the sun and the sky ! 

It is not birds alone that are doomed to live in 
cages, and not all cages are made of iron wires. The 
human soul finds its saddest imprisonment when it is 
helpless in the presence of cruelty, when it cannot 
right a wrong. It finds its highest freedom when it 
can secure justice to others. 

A poor woman was dying a miserable death in her 
miserable little room on the top floor of a big tene- 



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ment house in the city of New York, when a good 
Methodist missionary woman found her and sought 
to help her. But the dying woman said, *'My time 
is short. I ask for nothing for myself, but I can- 
not die in peace while a miserable little child is being 
cruelly beaten night and day in the next room. I 
have been hearing her screams for months." The 
missionary tried to secure justice to the child, but 
twenty years ago in New York City there were no 
laws under which such a case could be brought to 
court. The police said, 'Tt is a dangerous thing to 
interfere between parent and child." As a last resort 
the missionary appealed to Henry Bergh, the holy 
man who befriended the dog, the horse, and all 
dumb animals. He said, 'The child is an animal. It 
shall have the rights of the stray cur in the streets;" 
and the starved, half-naked, and bruised little girl 
was brought into court wrapped in a horse-blanket. 
A cry of horror went through the city of New York. 
Little Mary Ellen was rescued, and became a 
farmer's happy wife in central New York. Jacob 
Riis tells this story in The Children of the Poor, as 
the origin of the formation of the Society for the 
Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which, under one 
form or another, now exists in nearly all the great 
cities of Europe and America. How happy and glori- 
ous was the death of the poor consumptive woman in 
the tenement house! How stately a mansion did 
that soul create for itself! 

Any act that serves, whether it be mending a 



172 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



broken tug, giving a bird its freedom, or standing 
between a little child and its wrongs, suggests the 
highest art of mansion-making. 

Courage, reverence, helpfulness, these are the 
three simple rules of the character-builder. 

Dear children, we have had good times together 
over high themes ; we have tasted the sweets of 
thought, the fellowship of free minds, the communion 
of love. I pray that your lives may bring you much 
health, prosperity, and peace. For these we dare not 
always hope, but we can so live that each day may 
find us dwelling in a ''new temple, nobler than the 
last." Live on the front line. Fear not the out-of- 
doors of God when the mind is crowded on the 
inside. Give your minds room to think great things ; 
give your hearts room to love high things, nay, to 
love low things, to love everything; give your wills 
and consciences room to do true things, and you 
will always dwell in noble mansions. Build, build, 
build! Not for time, but for eternity! Build out of 
thoughts and loves the holy temple of usefulness, and 
your little temples will become sacred chapels, altar 
places in the infinite temple of God, "the house not 
made with hands, eternal in the heavens," in which 
you may dwell forever. Amen. 



INTO THE LIGHT 



THE TABLES TURNED 



Up! up! my Friend, and quit your hooks; 
Or surely you'll grow double: 
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks; 
Why all this toil and trouble? 

The sun, above the mountain' s head, 

A freshening lustre mellow 

Through all the long green fields has spread, 

His first sweet evening yellow. 

Books! 't is a dull and endless strife: 
Come, hear the woodland linnet. 
How sweet his music! on my life. 
There's more of wisdom in it. 

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings! 
He, too, is no mean preacher: 
Come forth into the light of things. 
Let Nature be your teacher. 

She has a world of ready wealth. 
Our minds and hearts to bless — 
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health. 
Truth breathed by cheerfulness. 

One impulse from a vernal wood 
May teach you more of man. 
Of moral evil and of good. 
Than all the sages can. 

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; 
Our meddling intellect 

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things: 
We murder to dissect. 

Enough of Science and of Art; 
Close up those barren leaves; 
Come forth, and bring with you a heart 
That watches and receives. 

— William Wordsworth 



X 



INTO THE LIGHT 

Come forth into the light of things, 
Let Nature be your teacher. 

— Wordsworth 

There are three ways in which men have esti- 
mated nature. According to the first way, it was 
regarded as an enemy, antagonistic to the higher Hfe 
of man, a snare to entrap the soul, a force ,to be 
resented, with interests ahen to those of the spirit. 
This view makes it the business of rehgion to get 
away from nature as soon as possible. It led the 
devotee into the anchorite's cell. It produced the 
piety which sought caves and deserts, and it encour- 
aged the flagellants to torture the flesh. This view of 
nature looked upon the world as accursed, God-for- 
saken, devil-possessed. It taught that the bodies we 
occupy are prison-houses of the soul, ever pulling it 
downward, entangling the spirit, endangering its 
future, and polluting its present. This estimate 
springs from the thought that God is far ofif, that 
heaven is in some other realm, that the spirit receives 
its illumination and revelation through miracle. 

The story of Adam and Eve in Eden seemed to 
justify this estimate:^ Once the world was beautiful 
and holy, but the serpent came into it and tempted 
Eve, and she did eat of the forbidden fruit and give 
it to Adam to eat. And for this the world was cursed ; 

175 



176 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



thorns were put upon the rose; briars grew in the 
fields that henceforth yielded reluctantly her grains 
and her fruits and from which man must win his 
bread by toil and sweat. 

A second estimate of nature regards it with 
indifference except as a storehouse of material com- 
forts. According to this estimate, nature is a cup- 
board from which we draw with more or less suc- 
cess the necessities of life. A pine tree is so many 
thousand shingles in possibility; an oak suggests a 
certain number of feet of building timber; a prairie, 
the possibility of so many bushels of corn per acre. 
Land is divided into two kinds, useful and useless ; 
the first is to be cut up into farms ; the latter tempts 
the invention, and men try to find some use for it. 
Here in Chicago, men organize their Calumet clubs 
to secure control of thousands of acres of what they 
call waste land, in order that they may control the 
fishing and the shooting thereon. The Calumet 
swamps and the Kankakee marshes are of use because 
they harbor wild ducks and make good shooting- 
ground. This estimate of nature is the estimate of 
ignorance, the estimate of business, the estimate 
which measures life by its possessions, by dollars and 
cents. 

The third estimate of nature regards it as a 
friend, beautiful, inspiring, exhaustless. It looks 
upon nature as the teacher of mind, the wonder-home 
of man, the house of God, exhaustless in its bounty, 
the great book of revelation ordered and orderly. 



INTO THE LIGHT 177 



This is the view of poetry, of science, and of art. 
This is the view of universal rehgion, which regards 
God as the hfe of the universe, the hght of history, 
the love in all our loves, the joy in all our joys. It is 
this view of nature that brings cheer to the discour- 
aged, inspiration to the student, patience to the toiler, 
glad trustfulness to all. It led Jesus to find God's 
revelation in the lilies of the field and to discover the 
parables of the higher life by the roadside, in the 
fields, and on the beach. 

But this view of nature is in the main a modern 
view. It has remained for these later centuries of 
the world's history to teach men what a friend they 
have in nature, how comforting are her ways. And 
the two great aids in this direction have been art 
and science. When Millet, that brave French peasant 
painter, was borne down with care and anxiety, his 
great heart toiling to teach reluctant eyes to see 
beauty in things near, poetry in the beauties of the 
field and the home, he exclaimed, ''Come, let us go 
and see the sunset; it will make me feel less forlorn." 
There is a beautiful story told of the great Ole Bull 
when he was stretched on his bed of pain and life was 
ebbing away. He was too sick to speak, but his 
friends saw that he wanted something. They 
brought him his favorite violin, his diamonded bow, 
the crown of gold he had won. To all these he shook 
his head, but when someone wiser than the others 
brought him a handful of heather from the hillside, 
he smiled and pressed it to his bosom, and was 



178 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



soothed and comforted. This great master of art 
died a loving child of nature, pressing to his bosom 
one of its most familiar flowers. 

Poetry has done much in these days to help us to 
an appreciation of what is best in nature. I dare not 
begin to quote from the great measures of Shakes- 
peare and Goethe, of Wordsworth and Emerson, 
Tennyson and Longfellow, Whittier and Bryant, for 
the delightful task would tempt me too far away 
from my purpose. But all of them say in ever vary- 
ing notes, 

Come forth into the light of things, 
Let Nature be your teacher. 

And what a beautiful story is that of the heroes 
of science, of the men enamored of nature. How 
brave and tender, how diligent and joyous the lives of 
those who have accepted nature's invitation and gone 
"forth into the light of things." Brave Columbus 
sailing unknown seas in search of hidden continents; 
Von Humboldt climbing the solitudes of the Andes; 
Livingstone penetrating the depths of unexplored con- 
tinents; Darwin sailing amid tropic seas in the 
"Beagle," studying coral and mollusk; Agassiz 
exploring the tropic glories of the Amazon or bat- 
tling with the Alpine glaciers ; not to mention the 
names of those who have found great peace in study- 
ing the midnight stars in the solitude of fireless obser- 
vatories, or those other devotees of the lens who, by 
means of the microscope, explore the palaces of little- 
ness and study the inhabitants of a raindrop. To 



INTO THE LIGHT 



179 



think of Wallace, Proctor, Huxley, and Tyndall, of 
Pasteur and Koch, is to enlarge one's mind, clear one's 
vision, warm one's heart, ennoble the ideals of life, 
because all of these went "forth into the light of 
things;" they accepted nature as a teacher, and it 
made them not only wise but noble. It gave them not 
only skill of intellect but warmth of heart. In seek- 
ing truth they learned to serve the right also, and in 
becoming wise they grew loyal. 

Dear friends, it is well to know much of books, to 
master foreign languages, to study remote ages, and, 
when possible, to travel into foreign lands. I wish 
you might all sail up the Nile, visit Palestine, and sit 
amid the ruins of Persepolis, but these are privileges 
which come to only a few. So it is well to remember 
that the lapping waves of Lake Michigan murmur the 
same gospel that the ''ripple-wash of Galilee" taught 
Jesus. The rose of Illinois reflects the same glory 
as the rose of Sharon. The same sun rose over Chi- 
cago this morning that shone upon Jerusalem when 
the name of Solomon made it famous and glorious. 
Aye, the little sparrow on your housetop, held more 
cheaply than the sparrow of Judea, two of which 
were sold for a farthing, may, if your heart is not 
hardened, testify to the same inclusive power and 
love that numbers the hairs of your head. 

It is well to read the charming books of Thoreau 
and John Burroughs, for they tell much about the 
robins, the squirrels, the buttercups, and the clouds. 
But it is a great deal better to do what Henry Thor- 



i8o 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



eau and John Burroughs did; go and interview the 
robins for yourselves, note the habits of the thrush 
and the woodpecker as they did, cultivate the squir- 
rels, and learn of the pine cones as they did. 

Henry Thoreau noted in his diary from year to 
year the first day of spring on which he could lay off 
his coat. In 1854 it was on April 5. On that day he 
noticed a buff-edged butterfly and hawks flying over 
the meadow, and, he adds, ''Hark! while I was writ- 
ing down that field note, the shrill peep of the hylodes 
was borne to me from afar through the woods." On 
the same date nine years afterward, the tree spar- 
rows and the pewees were heard. One day later in 
the year 1853 he wrote: "One cowslip shows the 
yellow, though it is not fairly out but will be by 
tomorrow. How they improve their time. Not a 
moment of sunshine is lost. One thing I may depend 
on : there has been no idling with the flowers ; nature 
loses not a moment, takes no vacation. They advance 
as steadily as a clock." And so on through the year 
he went with his eyes open, his ears alert, and the 
fine sense of touch open at every pore to the benign 
invasion of God, who came to him with his message 
of peace, riding on the rays of light; who 
spoke to him his gospel of progress in the 
never-failing seasons; who preached to him a 
religion of independence in the saucy bark of 
the squirrel. He worshiped in the great Saint Peter's 
of nature, the sacred cathedral we call "out of doors," 
domed by the sky, illumined by the stars, an architec- 



INTO THE LIGHT 



i8i 



ture compared with which the great triumph of 
Angelo, the dome of St. Peter's at Rome, is but a 
bubble. 

Let me be a Httle more specific. What are the 
lessons which nature teaches us when we come ''into 
the light of things?" At least she teaches us the high 
lesson of regularity. The preachers talk about 
''faith" until sometimes the listeners lose patience 
and say, "Faith in what? What can we trust in these 
days when everything is being doubted? How can 
we know what is true, or what to believe? All the 
great fundamentals of religion, so called, seem to be 
in question. The preachers themselves are in dispute. 
The denominations are full of heretics. Heresy is in 
the air. Not 'faith' but doubt seems to be every- 
where. We can be certain of nothing." 

Come forth into the light of things, 
Let Nature be your teacher, 

and you may at least be certain that the sun is shining 
somewhere; you will look for it in the east every 
morning, and you will set your watches by it when it 
comes. You may always know where to look for the 
North Star. You know on which trees to expect 
the apples, and you know that pumpkins do not grow 
on oak trees or acorns on pumpkin vines. In short, 
you know that nature works in an ordered way, that 
you live in a world governed by law, that your life is 
cradled in law, that birth and death are alike produced 
by law, that there is a cause for every effect, that one 
thing is related to all things, or, as Emerson says, 



l82 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



A subtle chain of countless rings 
The next unto the farthest brings. 

And more than this, when you ''come forth into 
the Hght of things," you see that this order is a grow- 
ing one. Nature is not a finished cabinet of curios 
put away on shelves where they will always stay, but 
it is a procession, a moving column; a great army; 
there is a place for colonel, captain, and corporal, and 
every private has his place in the ranks, and, best of 
all, the column is moving. Nature is marching on. 
It is going somewhere. To change the figure, nature 
is a great river flowing onward, yes, ''onward" is 
the word. Nature is improving. 

John Fiske says of the early Jurassic period : 

The real lords of creation were the giant reptiles stalking 
over the earth, splashing through the sea, and flying on swift 
bat-like wings overhead. The Iguanodon, from fifty to seventy 
feet in length, was supposed to be the largest, but Professor 
Marsh has discovered the Atlantosaurus of Colorado, nearly 
one hundred feet in length and thirty feet in height, the largest 
animal yet known. 

But all those clumsy giants are gone, and in their 
stead have come nimble squirrels, beautiful thrushes, 
intelligent boys and girls. Fancy a squirrel teasing 
and shaming an Iguanodon, and telling him there 
is no virtue in size ; that not bigness but adaptation is 
valuable. 

What has happened in the animal world has hap- 
pened in the world of plants and in human history. 
The pippin was once a crab apple. Shakespeare and 



INTO THE LIGHT 



Emerson have descended from ancestors as low as the 
Hottentot and as savage as the Indian. The world is 
growing finer, and mankind is getting better. "Come 
forth into the light of things," and nature will teach 
you that progress is a part of her order, development 
her method, evolution her motto. 

Again in the light of things, we are taught the 
lesson of patience. Nature is diligent but never 
hasty. She is persistent, but never impatient. 
She has been at work for a long time, and 
there is every indication that she will continue for a 
long time to come. The old-fashioned books used to 
tell us that the world was created about six thousand 
years ago, but in the ''light of things" we see that six 
thousand years is but a tick of the clock. That 
clumsy Iguanodon, sixty feet long, lived before the 
mammals appeared on the earth, and the mammals go 
back only about one-twentieth of the period in which 
there are fossil evidences of life upon the earth. Sir 
William Thompson has estimated that this solid earth 
of ours, once a fiery mass of vapor, has been solidify- 
ing for perhaps four hundred million years, and that 
vegetable and animal life have been on the earth from 
one to two hundred million years. Perhaps man has 
been on the earth from one to two million years. All 
this time he has been learning his lesson slowly, very 
slowly, but very surely. 

A million years! Mr. Croll, a clever student of 
nature, has tried to help us to some idea of the extent 
of a million years. This is his illustration : Take a 



184 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



Strip of paper eighty-three feet and four inches in 
length, and mark off one tenth of an inch on the end 
of this strip to represent a hundred years; the whole 
strip will represent a million years, and one tenth of 
an inch will count a hundred years in that space. 
Mark off your own age in that inch-space and see 
how short is your life in this long story. Nature is 
deliberate. She has taken a long while to accomplish 
her task. It is believed that there are trees in India 
still alive that were growing when Buddha went 
about teaching gentleness and it is quite probable that 
there are cedars in Palestine that are as old as Jesus. 
In the light of things we grow patient. 

Again, all this order, progress, and patience are 
somehow allied with beauty. Nature loves color. 
The rose is the child of her bosom, the lily the pride 
of her garden. Starlight and daisy woo us into the 
palace beautiful, and the palace beautiful abounds in 
cheerful song. There is a blending of notes as there 
is of color in nature. Nature soothes us, sings to us, 
makes us laugh. Primitive man was morose, gloomy ; 
civilized man is sunny, happy. Smiles go with intel- 
ligence; genial laughter is the fruit of culture. 

The older books, like the earlier science, were 
much given to classification, and ignorant people are 
still very anxious about their labels. There is a silly 
curiosity as to what church, creed, or race the 
stranger may belong to, as if knowing these you would 
know the man. ''Come forth into the light of 
things," and learn that variety is the law of nature. 



INTO THE LIGHT 



Even the flowers baffle the classifying botanist. 
Nature teaches us that no two leaves on the tree are 
alike. There is not a grain of sand but has an indi- 
viduality all its own. How much more must every 
soul be itself, unlike every other self! 

Amber is the fossil gum of a tree that grew away 
back in the earlier eras of the tertiary period, before 
mammals were. A German entomologist has made a 
collection of insects that have been preserved to us in 
this gum where they stuck when they foolishly went 
to it for a sweet sip millions of years ago. Here are 
gnats, mites, mosquitoes, sucking flies of great variety, 
in all eight hundred and twenty different kinds of 
insects. Only thirty of these kinds are now found in 
Europe; about a hundred of them are found in 
America; not one is found in Africa. Much of this 
amber is found in comparatively small districts of 
Asia Minor. If nature delighted in making such a 
variety of flies several million years ago, you may 
be sure she has not lost her passion for diversity or 
the trick of variation. If there are such varieties in flies 
why should there not be greater varieties in human 
souls ? Why should you care to think, act, or believe 
like another? ''Come forth into the light of things," 
think, act, and believe according to the guidance of 
your own nature. Be true to yourself ; beware of 
uniforms; nature has little use for them. Harmony 
is not uniformity, but the blending of diversity. 
Beauty rests in variety. 

Here, then, we have the certainties of nature, the 



i86 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



blessed realities of natural religion. We have 
learned in the light of things to believe in law, in 
progress, to work patiently for beauty, which blooms 
more and more into variety. We began in law, we 
end in freedom. We began with things, we end with 
spirit. Patience is no longer endurance, but inspira- 
tion. For the last and dearest lesson of it all is that 
we are a part of this order. The noblest thing in 
nature is human nature. The highest work of the 
God of nature is that which he accomplishes through 
the human hand, the matchless mechanism of nature; 
through the human heart, the divinest love in nature; 
through the human mind, the most Godlike power 
that we can study in nature. Emerson tells us that 
the earth "wears the Parthenon as the best gem upon 
her zone," that the morning "welcomes the pyra- 
mids," and that the English abbeys belong to nature 
as do the Andes and Ararat. There is no break 
between the violet and the Christ-child, between 
mother robin and Mother Mary. 

Royal man is not only a god to his dog, but he is 
regal in the realms of nature. For him the lightning 
runs on errands, for him fire preserves and protects 
what it once destroyed. Man reduces the thorn and 
increases the rose; he prunes the vine, enriches the 
grape; he plows up the sod, and raises wheat where 
weeds flourished. He destroys the forest and builds 
a city, makes a shepherd dog out of a wolf, a friend 
out of the lion, catches the note of the mocking-bird, 
and reproduces it on the violin with improvements 



INTO THE LIGHT 



187 



and variations. What is the skylark compared to 
Patti as a member of nature's orchestra? 

"Come forth into the hght of things," and reaHze 
how bountiful nature is toward mind; how she dotes 
on a loving soul, opens up her innermost cabinets, and 
gives him her choicest secrets. 

A few years ago the city of Memphis was contin- 
ually threatened with pestilence on account of the 
meager quantity and inferior quality of the water. 
Its citizens communed more closely with nature. The 
man of science bade them bore their wells deeper. 
Down they went through gravel and clay, through 
the bad water of surface and sewage, through the 
clay waterproof cap hundreds of feet down, and lo! 
they touched exhaustless cisterns of purest water, 
which hurried into every hydrant and every house in 
the city that would give it admission. 

So is it everywhere in regard to all the needs of 
man. Nature is as bountiful as she is beautiful, as 
generous as she is exacting. A quart of water a day 
will satisfy the needs of a savage. A civilized man 
living in the country, needs for domestic uses from 
fifteen to twenty gallons per day. In the city, with its 
complex needs for manufacturing purposes, street- 
cleaning, park fountains, and extinguishing fires, 
sixty gallons a day for each person is the estimate. 
Where nature seems most hungry and thirsty, she is 
only waiting for the intelligent prayer of man to 
enable her to meet his wants. 

Nature conspires for the triumph of excellence. 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



Nature begins by pleading with us for the open mind ; 
she ends by helping us to the joyous and enthusiastic 
life. The true in science is the good in religion. The 
tints of the rose call for virtue in the maiden. The 
stalwartness of the pine demands its counterpart in 
the integrity of the boy. As the meadows yield grass, 
so society should yield grace. 

Men used to teach, perhaps they do yet in some 
places, of a fallen race, of corrupt human nature, 
total depravity, eternal hell, a man-cursing devil, and 
a God of wrath and vengeance, but you have escaped 
such hurting thoughts. Go out of doors, be it day 
or night, clear weather or cloudy, sunlight or star- 
light, they all alike deny the black theology and 
reaffirm the ethical dignity of nature, the moral 
sanctity of human nature. Atom and planet, cell and 
cathedral, alike preach the cheerful gospel that the 
God of nature is law and this law is love. In this 
law his creatures find liberty and not tyranny. When 
men would teach you to seek in a far-off past for a 
golden age of peace and purity, or in a far-off future 
in some cloudy realm beyond death a heaven where 
alone love is dominant, virtue possible, and joy a 
reality, go out ^'into the light of things" where you i 
will find that here and now, "all is harmonious, united, 
and fair." The bird on her nest crooning to her mate 
on the bough is a better and safer teacher. 

Believe that the love-life in your own heart, mak- 
ing melodious your silent moments, making calm 
your most toilful hours, making your burden-bearing 



INTO THE LIGHT 



189 



joyful, is God's life in your soul, and that the call to 
duty, the thirst for usefulness, the passion to serye 
which rises in your heart as you stand on the thresh- 
old of life with the morning sunrise upon your 
brow, is God's yoice within seeking to accord with 
God's yoice without, thus bringing about that higher 
harmony between the human nature in .man and the 
God of and in nature. To you as to A\'ordsworth, 
now as then and always, 

One impulse from a vernal wood 

May teach you more of man, 
Of moral evil and of good, 

Than all the sages can. 

But the "vernal wood" is no more nature's field 
than are the eyergreen fields of literature, the forest 
solemnities of history, the mountain peaks of genius 
when they are allied to nature's forces. Beware how 
you force an antagonism between nature without and 
nature within. Emerson saw more clearly than 
Wordsworth the identity of matter and mind. Body 
and soul are allied, united in the sanctity of being. 
An indignity to one is an indignity to the other. A 
joy to the one is a joy to the other. Let us treat both 
as sacred from the hand of God, and go forth into life 
sustained by the religion of nature, the immutable law 
which is unfailing love, unceasing progress through 
the measureless ages of eternity, beauty ripening into 
duty, variety into freedom, and all into character, 
realized by the open mind and the deyoted life. 



LITTLE CANDLES 



Like the beacon lights in harbors, ivhich, kindling a great 
blaze by means of a few fagots, afford sufficient aid to vessels 
that wander over the sea, so, also, a man of bright character 
in a storm-tossed city, himself content with little, effects great 
blessings for his fellow-citizens. 

— Epictetus 



XI 



LITTLE CANDLES 

How far that little candle throivs his beams! 
. So shines a good deed in a naughty world. 

— Shakespeare 

A pretty text chosen from a pretty story daintily 
told by the greatest of poets. Portia, the heroine of 
Shakespeare's drama, The Merchant of Venice, gentle 
as she was wise, loving as she was brave, tender as 
she was strong, approaches her palace in the dead of 
midnight, at the end of a long walk with her com- 
panions, and as she discovers the light burning in the 
window of her hall, she exclaims, 

How far that Httle candle throws his beams ! 
So shines a good deed in a naughty world. 

How^ far a little light penetrates the darkness! A 
tallow candle no bigger than my finger has thrown its 
ray through storm and darkness many a time from the 
window of a prairie cottage, a sod cabin in Nebraska, 
or a pine shanty in Dakota to cheer the heart of the 
belated traveler a mile away. How far a little light 
goes, and how welcome a thing is a light in darkness, 
a light that shows where life is, where love is ! 

Let us travel from our text toward our sermon. 
In one way this story of The Merchant of Venice is 
itself a little candle. It would make a book of only 
about fifty pages. One can read it through in tw^o 
hours. It was written about three hundred years ago. 

193 



194 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



How much trouble and noise, pain, sickness, sorrow, 
and death has the world seen during these three 
hundred years! Since these lines were written, the 
''Mayflower" landed at Plymouth Rock; the Pil- 
grims wrestled with the rugged soil of New England ; 
Miles Standish had his battles with wild Indians; 
witches were hanged at Salem farms ; Boston patriots 
threw English tea into the harbor rather than submit 
to unjust taxation; the seven-year war of the Revo- 
lution followed; Washington spent the dreary winter 
at Valley Forge, and made the perilous voyage amid 
the floating ice at Trenton. After that, with Adams, 
Jefferson, and others, he laid the foundations of the 
United States. The stars and stripes became the flag 
of a great republic. 

During those three hundred years the great West 
has been opened up; gold has been found in Cali- 
fornia, and thousands have lost their lives in crossing 
the plains in search of it. During that time the anti- 
slavery struggle has come and gone. Men said, "It is 
not right to buy and sell human beings, to beat them 
and chain them like cattle;" hence the awful war of 
the Rebellion in which a million or more people lost 
their lives. In Europe, these three hundred years 
have seen the wild, mad times of the French Revolu- 
tion, where people, crushed by cruelty, became them- 
selves fearfully cruel. Napoleon c^d Wellington 
fought the great battle of Waterloo. The Crimean 
war and many another bloody, bloody scene have been 
enacted since these two little lines were written. Only 



LITTLE CANDLES 



195 



seventeen words, but they shine down through tem- 
pest and storm, through bitterness and cruelty, through 
ignorance and hatred, through the noise and rush and 
scramble of the centuries to please the fancy, kindle 
the imagination, and light the consciences of some 
little boys and girls in Chicago. Here is a little 
candle lit three hundred years ago and three thousand 
miles away, still burning, and you and I see the light 
of it. 

And if we look back of the candle, the hand that 
lit it was at that time obscure enough. A humble fel- 
low was William Shakespeare then. His father was 
probably a butcher; he himself seems to have learned 
the trade of a wool-comber. After that he became 
a recorder's clerk and perhaps a not very successful 
play actor, and still his candles shine. He put one of 
them into the hand of the noble Portia, who in the 
same play repeats these wonderful lines about mercy: 

The quality of mercy is not strained, 
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath ; it is twice blest ; 
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes : 
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes 
The throned monarch better than his crown; 
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, 
The attribute to awe and majesty, 
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings. 
But mercy is above this sceptred sway; 
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, 
It is an attribute to God himself ; 
And earthly power doth then show likest God's 
When mercy seasons justice. 



196 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



This candle has thrown a Hght into cruel hearts, 
made people more tender, less selfish, more noble. 

And in the same play this butcher's son has given 
us a pitiful picture of the poor old Jew, nagged for 
his religion's sake, spit upon and hated, abused because 
of the race to which he belonged, until at last he was 
stung to severity and meanness. For most of the 
three hundred years since Shakespeare lit this candle, 
people have thought Shylock a character to be hated, 
to be ridiculed, to be despised. But somehow the 
light of this candle grows clearer as we get farther 
away from it. Or rather it is our eyes that grow 
clearer to see the beauty of the light and the direction 
in which it travels. And now people are learning to 
pity poor old Shylock, who has been so abused, and to 
say, no wonder he grew hard and at last indignant; 
we too would be as bad had we received such treat- 
ment. 

But let us leave Shakespeare, the great candle- 
lighter who has made the heavens of thought and 
feeling bright with lights that shine like stars, and 
see if we can find other illustrations of this beautiful 
text to help us remember and appreciate it. 

It is good to recall some of the now famous lights, 
which were once but humble candles lit in the dark. 
I wonder if you have heard of John Pounds, the 
Portsmouth cobbler, who lived more than one hun- 
dred and fifty years ago, and who for twenty years 
gathered in his shop the little ragged outcasts of the 
streets to teach them to read and write, tempting them 



LITTLE CANDLES 



197 



thither with hot potatoes which he baked in the ashes 
in his httle chimney corner. Thus he laid the founda- 
tion of a great system of schools known in England 
as the ''ragged schools," which spread all over the 
land until there was scarcely a town of importance in 
England without one. We read of one person who 
in ten years fed and taught four thousand different 
children. These schools grew until they became what 
is now the free-school system of England. How that 
little deed of kindness "shines in a naughty world." 
"How far that little candle throws his beams!" 

You have heard the beautiful story about Sir 
Philip Sidney, perhaps the most famous of the noble 
stories in the English language to illustrate our text, 
and the best thing about it is that it is true. Sir 
Philip was a courtier with eminent titles and vast 
estates. He was a poet, and he wrote beautiful stories, 
but it is not for his poems or his stories that he is best 
remembered. When fighting with the Hollanders 
who were struggling for their freedom at Ziitphen, 
he fell, mortally wounded. As they were carrying 
him from the field, he complained of intense thirst. 
When the canteen was put to his lips, he noticed a 
private soldier looking wistfully toward the water. 
The titled officer put the untasted water from his lips, 
and, handing it to the dying soldier, said, "Thy neces- 
sity is yet greater than mine." For this good deed 
the name of Sir Philip Sidney remains as a type of 
the true gentleman, the noble Christian knight, a 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



soldier without ^ile and without cruelty. A small 
act, a great deed ; a little candle, a great light. 

I hope you will some day read a little book published 
by the American Tract Society, called The Story of 
Mary Jones and her Bible. It tells of a little girl in 
North Wales who, over a hundred years ago, saved 
her pennies through long years, and they came 
very slowly, in order that she might buy a Bible of 
her own; but when she had walked twenty-five miles, 
barefooted, to make the purchase of the good Dr. 
Charles of Bala, she found that the limited number of 
Welsh Bibles which had been brought into that part 
of the country had been all sold months ago, and the 
London Society said they could print no more. The 
little girl broke down with deep disappointment and 
wept bitterly, and the learned doctor, the professor of 
Bala College, said, "You shall have my copy. I can 
read it in other languages." From that experience 
started the impulse to organize the British Foreign 
Bible Society, which now publishes the Bible in every 
language on the globe. 

At Bala there is a fine monument to Rev. Thomas 
Charles, one of the three founders of the British and 
Foreign Bible Society, and there is carefully pre- 
served in a glass case, in the rooms of the British and 
Foreign Bible Society in London, an old Welsh Bible 
published in 1799. On the blank leaf between the Old 
and New Testaments is the inscription, in her own 
handwriting, which states that this book was bought 
by Mary Jones in the sixteenth year of her age with 



LITTLE CANDLES 



199 



her own money, of Dr. Thomas Charles. A little 
candle, lit by a peasant girl, is the light that has pene- 
trated the darkness and created the Bible Society 
which now publishes the Bible in two hundred and 
ninety-one languages and distributes about four mil- 
lion copies annually, many of them gratuitously. 

Wlien you remember that this book is the book 
above all others that best teaches the law of love, the 
rule of righteousness, and the thought of the one 
God, universal in his love, just in his dealings with 
men, you must see indeed "how far that little candle 
throws his beams!" 

The story is told of Velasquez, the great Spanish 
painter, that when he was a little boy his father led 
him by the hand through a noble picture gallery, and 
he saw great paintings for the first time in his life. 
These pictures so moved his little heart that he said, 
with tears in his eyes, "Father. I too am a painter!" 
So when boys and girls see "how far the little candle 
throws his beams," how full, how great are the 
results of a good deed, a kind act, a thoughtful word, 
they also, like the little boy in the story, find their 
hearts thrilled, and they say, "I too can be noble, I 
too will be gentle, I too must be true." The Arabs 
have a pretty proverb which says, "A fig tree look- 
ing upon figs becometh fruitful." So the soul look- 
ing upon excellence becomes excellent ; the heart in the 
presence of nobility becomes noble. Let us think of 
these great stories, and learn how possible it is for 
each one of us to do something that may become a 



i' 



200 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



little candle, throwing a beam into the darkness of a 
naughty world. 

When Robert Bruce, the brave Scotchman, died, 
he bequeathed his heart to Douglas, his gallant suc- 
cessor. This brave soldier had the heart of his hero 
prepared and sealed in a silver casket, which he wore 
around his neck on his crusade to the Holy Land. 
When hard pressed by foes, and his courage began 
to flag, he seized the silver case from his neck, threw 
it far forward into the enemy's lines, and then rushed 
forward to regain it. He fell, following his ideal, 
pushing forward where his purpose lay. He fell in 
trying to live up to a noble example. He died, fol- 
lowing the light of a little candle, lit far away and 
far back by Robert Bruce. 

Ziska was a Bohemian patriot, a leader of poor 
Bohemia when it was hard pressed by tyrants, and its 
life threatened by the forces that at length cruelly 
destroyed it. Hoping to inspire his fellow country- 
men with valor to fight for the losing cause, to stand 
by their liberty and their country, this chieftain 
ordered that after his death his skin should be pre- 
pared and used to cover the drumhead which should 
sound the call for other patriots to die a patriot's 
death. Such deeds of valor stir others to valiant 
deeds. 

But there is a higher valor than the valor of the 
battlefield. I deplore the appeal to the martial spirit 
on the part of the churches and in the name of 
religion. Perhaps some of you boys have already 



LITTLE CANDLES 



201 



been invited to join the "military brigades" in some 
of the churches. We sometimes see church parlors 
converted into armories, boys marching to church in 
uniforms, and muskets, bayonets, and cartridge boxes 
made a part of the equipment of the battalions that 
seek to develop character. 

I like courage. I believe with Emerson when he 
says in his poem that there are times when 
'Tis man's perdition to be safe 
When for the truth he ought to die. 

Life is too cheap to be preserved when honor is gone, 
and there have been times, there may yet come times, 
when, for the sake of peace, awful blows must be 
struck. But the captain of war is no longer the type 
of the noblest hero. The cannon's roar is not the 
voice of the God we worship. It is possible to be 
braver with lilies than with muskets in our hands. 
The flag we honor is a flag of peace and not of war. 
It represents a country whose power is measured not 
by its standing armies, but by its industrial armies 
whose defense consists not in its muskets, batteries, or 
floating navies, but in the smile of liberty, the grace 
of justice, and the far-off but ever-pursued dream of 
equity. So let us look for the candles, the "good 
deeds that shine in a naughty world," lit by gentle- 
ness and meekness, not by war's alarums or the 
soldier's exploits. 

I like to tell the story of a miserable little group 
of children whom I found one chilly night many 
years ago, on a belated train out on an Iowa prairie. 



202 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



It was near midnight when I boarded the train. The 
car was lonely for want of passengers, for it carried 
only two or three reluctant campaigners like myself, 
and, in the far corner, a little group of unaccompanied 
children. The oldest was a boy of fourteen, the 
youngest a babe not six months old, and between 
these were an unhappy little brother and two sisters. 
All were coarsely dressed, unwashed, and uncombed. 
The oldest brother made an awkward nurse for the 
puny little babe who so needed care, while the others, 
silenced by a misery too deep for tears, too long 
drawn out for wails, clustered around his knees. I 
heard the poor brother-mother try to croon with dis- 
cordant throat a little lullaby. He hummed in under- 
tone the old Sunday-school song of my childhood: 

I want to be an angel 

And with the angels stand, 
A crown upon my forehead, 

A harp within my hand. 

But the baby did not want to be an angel; it wanted 
food and care. I took the pale little thing in my arms, 
and, profiting by an experience which at that time 
was fresh, I succeeded in bringing sleep to the little 
tired bit of humanity. 

I soon learned their story from the foster-mother. 
The father, a shoemaker, had gone out to Kansas to 
make a home for his family, but in a year's time he 
was so smitten by malaria and pioneer hardships that 
his hands grew weak, and he lay down and died. Six 
months afterward the mother yielded the battle and 



LITTLE CANDLES 



203 



left five little orphans away out on the prairie. Good 
friends bought the newly made cabin and the bit of 
land, and with the sixty dollars that remained when 
the debts were paid, this fourteen-year old brother 
was taking his helpless charges back to ''Grandpap's" 
in Wisconsin. In twenty-four hours, if all went well, 
they would be sheltered in the safe haven of love. 

The boy's lullaby probably suggested to him the 
picture of angels with wings, white wings with long 
feathers, airy, fairy angels that float in the sky, that can 
sit upon clouds and not fall off; angels with harps, 
whose strings are not affected by moisture, but which 
forever and always yield heavenly music. I do not 
know much about such angels. I believe there are 
many fair and beautiful creatures of God with whom I 
am not acquainted. I am sure there are brighter be- 
ings in heaven and earth than our philosophers dream 
of, and I expect beautiful lives with beautiful accom- 
paniments in store for the struggling children of men 
after this life is lived. I know not of angels with 
feathers, but I do know the angels of God ; the 
avyeXoL^ the messengers, as the old Greeks used to 
call them, that belong to this world; who go up and 
down the earth bearing messages of good-will; who 
run on God's errands of mercy and helpfulness. I do 
know angels of God who wear clothes and eat bread 
and drink milk; angels, who, when full grown, weigh 
one hundred and more pounds. I do know angels of 
love that make our lives sweet, that break the hard 
knocks which would otherwise fall upon our unpro- 



204 LOVE AND LOYALTY 

tected heads, the angels that soothe and shelter, purify 
and help. 

I know not what has become of the little babe of 
my story. He may have grown up to sing the cradle 
song that failed to soothe him during that miserable 
night on the Iowa prairie, and he may "want to be an 
angel" with wings, but it will be sad if no one tells 
him of the real angel, God's true messenger, a verit- 
able member of the dpyeXoi , who bore him when a 
babe all the way from his orphan home in Kansas to 
the sheltering arms of "Grandpap" and ''Grand- 
ma'am" in Wisconsin. 

Be it as it may, dear children, about the angels in 
the sky, or whatever beautiful life the great bye-and- 
bye may hold in store for us, be assured that you can 
be angels of love and beauty, of joy and duty, here 
and now. When you speak the words of kindness 
and do the deeds of helpfulness, you are in truth, in 
sober fact, what your mothers sometimes call you, 
'Uittle angels." 

I may never know the sequel to the story of that 
little group of orphan children, but this I know, that 
the clumsy tenderness, the precocious forethought of 
that awkward boy has been a candle, to me, at least, 
shining in a naughty world through many, many years. 
It was nearly twenty years ago, and still that boy's 
face shines before my eyes with a radiance which 
Raphael was never able to give to his angels. It 
shines with a benediction which I look for in vain 



LITTLE CANDLES 



205 



among the rapt faces of Fra Angelico, the master 
painter of angel bands. 

That face suggests the good deeds that inspire a 
valor higher than is known on field of battle, holier 
than those represented by the uniforms, the guns, and 
the music of our warlike Christians who are today 
being marshaled in the name of Jesus, the lowly and 
the loving, the gentle and the submissive, who died 
without resisting cruelty, while uttering the words, 
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they 
do !" 

Not long ago I spent a day at Santa Fe, the capital 
city of the Territory of New Mexico, a curious, 
quaint old Mexican town only partially American- 
ized. I can scarcely accustom myself to the thought 
that away out there on the arid plains of New Mexico, 
seven thousand feet above the sea, with endless miles 
of dry, parched, uninhabited plains studded with cacti, 
sage grass, soap weed, and dwarf cedars, stands what 
is probably the most ancient city in the United States. 
St. Augustine, of Florida, boasts of having been 
founded by the Spaniards in 1595, but the records 
claim that Coronado, the old Mexican pathfinder, 
founded here a village in 1540, fifty-five years before 
the founding of St. Augustine, and that he took 
possession of it then and there in the name of Christ 
and in the interests of Spain. Be this as it may, it is 
certain that in 1605, fifteen years before the landing 
of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, the Spaniards 
planted a colony which they named La Ciudad Real 



206 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



de La Santa Fe de San Francisco, "The True City of 
the holy faith of St. Francis," the name which has 
been shortened by our practical Yankee people into 
Santa Fe, Holy Faith. 

Here I visited what is asserted to be the oldest 
house of worship in this country, the church of San 
Miguel, built soon after the occupation of the town in 
1605. The old original adobe walls, built of unburnt 
brick, still stand. Inside is seen the old copper bell sent 
from far-off Spain, bearing the date of 1350 in its 
battered rim, making it about five hundred and fifty 
years old. And now at certain times it strikes the 
call for the children who attend the parish school near 
by to come to their religious lessons. I entered the 
larger, more modern, but far less interesting cathedral 
near by, and there I found the good father, the holy 
monk, teaching his confirmation class an Easter les- 
son. There were from fifty to sixty children present, 
Indian, Mexican, American, and perhaps Irish and 
German. The good old priest talked in Spanish. I 
knew he was talking to them of God, of duty, of 
heaven, of father, of love, of honor and righteous- 
ness, not because I know Spanish, but because in all 
modern languages the great words are very much 
alike. I was interested in seeing how closely those 
children of what we call the "wild West," listened, 
without whisper or murmur. Some of the faces were 
rapt with attention while the good father gave them 
their Easter lesson. 

In the afternoon I rode on horseback out on the 



LITTLE CAXDLES 



207 



dry, dusty, alkali, desert-like hills away beyond the 
city, out of sight of habitations, passing now and then 
some ^Mexicans bringing into town bundles of dried 
wood, vegetables, or cans of milk strapped to the backs 
of their burros, the little dwarf donkeys not much 
bigger than sheep. Xine miles out I came upon the 
Tesuque Pueblo, a village of old-fashioned Indians 
related to the curious clift'-dwellers of Colorado, who 
lived in holes carved in the face of the upright rock, 
story upon story, like swallows in the bluff. I spent 
an hour with those simple people, who were clad for 
the most part in blankets and moccasins. I went into 
their curious mud houses built two stories high, the 
upper tiers of which were entered by ladders on the 
outside. As I stepped into the doorways I received the 
courteous greeting Entre, which is the Spanish for 
'''Come in," but there their speech ended. They could 
talk little English, and I could talk no Indian and 
little Spanish. Their houses in the main were cleanly. 
Most of the people were busy in the simple industry 
of making baskets, molding and decorating crude 
pottery, tanning leather, and shaping it into slippers 
and moccasins adorned with bead ornaments. There 
I saw the grinding-stones of the primitive mill, rude 
contrivances by means of which they reduced their 
corn into meal between two stones, one fixed, the 
other moved by the hands of the women. 

In one of the houses where the women wore 
modern clothes, calico dresses and ''boughten'* shoes, 
I asked the usual question, ''Can you speak English?" 



208 



LOVE AXD LOYALTY 



They smiled intelligently, and one of the women lifted 
a trap-door and called down through it. Presently 
from the lower story popped the head of a bright- 
faced boy looking strangely familiar, dressed in knee- 
pants, shoes, and woolen stockings, and wearing a 
white collar and a necktie. When I asked him if he 
could talk English, he promptly replied, "Yes, sir." 

"Where did you learn it?" 
^ "At school." 

"Where did you go to school?" 

"Santa Fe." 

"Why are you not at school now?" 

"It is vacation, Easter time." 

"When did you come home?" 

"Today. School closed at noon." 

Then it all came back to me. This was the very face 
I had noticed at Santa Fe that morning, as being so 
deeply interested in the story which the good Catholic 
priest was telling the children in his confirmation 
class. And then I thought of my own confirmation 
class, and I remembered your motto : 

How far that little candle throws his beams ! 
So shines a good deed in a naught}- world. 

I took much comfort in the thought that the 
good teacher's word was bringing a light into the 
simple homes of the Tesuque pueblos. This boy had 
come home perhaps to teach the mother and father 
how to read, and gradually he will lift some of the 
simple-minded pueblos into more comfort and larger 
Hfe. 



LITTLE CANDLES 



209 



But your motto carried me still farther back. The 
teacher-priest belonged to the Jesuit order, and I was 
reminded of that Spanish soldier whose leg was 
shattered at Pampeluna, just about the time that the 
old church of San Miguel was being builded in Santa 
Fe. That impulsive, ambitious soldier, wdiile tossing 
with the fever of impatience in the Spanish hospital, 
took to reading the Lives of the Saints, and as the 
story of their goodness and self-denial sank into his 
heart, there dawned in his mind visions of nobler 
things than being a soldier, seeking to take life with 
carnal weapons. He saw great moral battle-fields 
where there were needed heroes of love. He heard a 
call for warriors for truth, soldiers of the cross, and 
the crippled soldier became the great Loyola, who 
founded the great teaching order in the Catholic 
church. These Jesuits became the schoolmasters of 
Christendom; they went everywhere, and taught, and 
taught, and taught, until now their colleges are in 
every part of the world, and their work extends from 
the Indian schools in the West to the great College 
of the Propaganda at Rome, where it is said that every 
language and every dialect of the world is taught. 

Brave soldier! The bravest act of his life was 
when he voluntarily turned from guns and bayonets, 
painfully to take up the spelling book and the arith- 
metic, first mastering them himself and then enlisting 
an army vowed to teach them to others. All the way 
from the hospital in Spain down through three hun- 
dred and fifty years, streams the light that shone upon 



210 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



me that day in the pueblo of the Tesuques in far-off 
New Mexico. 

But there was a candle back of that. Nearly three 
hundred years before the fiery Spanish soldier lay 
in the hospital reading the lives of the saints, an 
Italian babe was born into a wealthy home. He grew 
up to love gaiety, to be prodigal of wealth, to love the 
exercise of arms, and to delight in the enthusiasms 
and pleasures of the chivalry of the day, in fine 
horses, handsome equipages, sword exercises, and 
gallantry. In one of the forays of his boyhood he 
was taken prisoner. For a year he languished as a 
captive. Illness came, he began to read and to be 
touched by the story of the excellences and kindnesses 
farther back, and he vowed himself to helpfulness and 
poverty. When he returned to the world, he laid 
aside the soldier's arms and the trappings of pride, 
and clothed himself with a gray garment fastened 
around the waist with a rope. He was touched with 
a marvelous gentleness. He loved the birds and 
joined with them in their chorals. He made a little 
neglected lamb his companion, taking it with him on 
a journey to Rome. He studied the grasshoppers, 
and they used to come and sing on his fingers. He 
preached to the flowers and fishes. He became the 
gentle St. Francis of Assisi, who founded the order 
of Franciscans. His story must have fired the heart 
of Loyola, the guide and inspiration of the priest who 
taught the Indian boy that talked English with me in 
the pueblo of the Tesuques in the far West, and more 



LITTLE CANDLES 



211 



than that, as I have said already, the fair town of 
Santa Fe was first named 'The True City of the Holy 
Faith of St. Francis." All the way from the little 
village in Italy, through seven hundred years of time, 
shine the good deeds of St. Francis in the naughty 
world of New Mexico. 

And still we have not reached our first candle. 
What was it that sank deep into the life of this gay 
young Italian cavalier as he lay tossing with fever on 
a prison bed? It was the story of another life, a story 
that had traveled thither from Asia through eleven 
hundred years of time, the story of a peasant boy who 
was the pride of his mother, the helper of his father, 
who grew into manly earnestness, who spoke words 
of such holy simplicity that fishermen left their nets 
and followed him, and the water-carriers at the well 
stopped to ask him questions. The tax-collector and 
the politicians ceased to wrangle over party issues and 
listened to what he had to say about the great things 
of love and duty. The higher dignitaries of the 
church wondered at his audacity, but listened to him 
notwithstanding. He taught people in simple stories. 
He showed them the difference between pretension and 
reality. He taught them to measure the value of a 
deed by the intentions and not by the accomplish- 
ments. The widow's mite was worth more to God, 
he said, than the wealthy man's eagles, because she 
gave out of her needs while he gave out of his plenty. 
The infidel who took care of the wounded man, and 
not the priest who passed him by, was most acceptable 



212 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



to God. Such stories as these were told by a man 
whose hfe was so kind that children clustered about 
him, and lonely, discouraged, and grief-stricken 
women trusted him. 

This life of a Judean peasant kindled in the 
heart of St. Francis the light which penetrated the 
darkened spirit of Loyola, crossed the seas in the 
caravels of Columbus, and traveled on through the 
wilderness of North America, on into the great val- 
leys of Mexico, on with the explorers who laid the 
foundations of the city of the "Holy Faith" of St. 
Francis. This light established the school at Santa 
Fe, which brightened the face of the Indian boy in 
the pueblor Surely, 

How far that little candle throws his beams ! 
So shines a good deed in a naughty world. 

And still, there are candles back of this candle. 
We have not yet come to the beginning of the light. 
What did Mother Mary teach the boy Jesus? What 
were the stories she had to tell him? She could not 
tell him of the fiery boy Loyola or the gentle St. 
Francis, for they were yet to come; but she could 
tell him of the heroic Maccabean kings, of the valiant 
Daniel who would not bow the knee to a false God, 
of the great king David who, before he was king, 
played on his harp the tunes which the quails loved 
and which soothed the melancholy spirit of the grim 
king Saul. She could tell him of little Samuel and 
his good mother Hannah, who gave him as a babe 
to serve at the altars of Yahveh, the great God. She 



LITTLE CANDLES 



213 



could tell him of the brave old prophets of Israel who 
went up and down among the people preaching right- 
eousness, telling them the Lord their God required of 
them only that they "do justly, love mercy, and walk 
humbly with their God." 

I am sure Mother Mary loved the great poets of 
her people. She loved to quote to the little boy the 
sweet hymns of the temple, such as, 

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. 

He leadeth me beside the still waters. 

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures ; 

or, 

The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof, 
The world and they that dwell therein. 
For he hath founded it upon the seas and estab- 
lished it upon the rocks ; 

or, 

The heavens declare the glory of God. 
The firmament showeth his handiwork. 
Day unto day uttereth speech, 
Night unto night showeth knowledge ; 

or again, 

The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the 
soul. 

The judgments of the Lord are true and right- 
eous altogether ; 

More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than 
much fine gold; 

Sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. 

Sometimes when she was not tired and had a little 
time, she would perhaps read from the great drama 
of Job, written by some great Hebrew Shakespeare, 



214 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



the story of a brave old hero, who, though plagued, 
perplexed, and bereft, ''held fast unto his integrity." 
Though he was smitten with disease, though he lost 
his property, and though his family died one by one 
he stood up under it like a man, and would not be 
cast down and profane the thought of God because 
of his adversity. And then, once in a while, for bed- 
time stories, Mother Mary would tell little Jesus the 
fairy stories of her people, the beautiful legends of 
creation, the Adam and Eve story, the deluge story, 
the story of Joseph and the spotted coat, of little 
Moses and his boat of bulrushes, and of the great 
wandering in the wilderness. Of course these beauti- 
ful stories, these great hero stories, as well as the 
splendid speeches of the orators of Jewry, helped to 
kindle the light in the home of Nazareth where 
Jesus grew up. Thus it is that the world is illumined 
with candles lit by humble hands in obscure places, 
whose light never goes out but passes on around the 
world and down the long centuries. 

Dear children, may each one of you be a little 
candle that will burn here on earth for earthly purposes 
in earthly homes, to give light to earthly pilgrims. 
Never mind the feather-winged angels. Let us be 
angels with willing feet and ready hands, and, when 
we cannot run, let us walk upon the errands of helpful- 
ness. We will not aspire to be "soldiers of the 
cross;" we will not carry guns even in play, but we 
will learn the manual at arms of love. Better a kiss 
than a blow. Better a smile than a frown. Better a 



LITTLE CANDLES 



215 



citizen than a soldier. Better a home than a fort. 
Better a good deed than a great deed, if there must 
be a distinction; that is to say, better do a kind thing 
than a big thing. A smile is oftentimes the most 
precious of gifts. 

Every one of these good deeds will become a 
candle that will "shine in a naughty world." 



LITTLE WAVES 



A NOISELESS PATIENT SPIDER 



A noiseless patient spider, 

I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated, 
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, 
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, 
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. 

And you, O my soul, where you stand. 

Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space, 

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throzving, seeking the spheres 

to connect them. 
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor 

hold. 

Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul. 

—Walt Whitman 



XII 



LITTLE WAVES 

No rock so hard but that a little wave 
May beat admission in a thousand years. 

— Alfred Tennyson, in "The Princess" 

Water would seem, at first thought, to be the 
weakest of things, unstable, changing, and fleeting. 
"Weak as water" is a saying familiar. Poor, down- 
hearted Keats, dying with his great hopes unrealized 
and his aching soul unsatisfied, asked his friends to 
inscribe on his tombstone, "Here lies one whose name 
was writ in water." Yet water is one of the mighty 
forces of the world. Water is the great architect that 
has builded our solid continents. Rock strata after 
strata have been laid, cemented, and solidified by 
water. Water is the great sculptor that has hollowed 
the caves, scooped the valleys, dug out the wild 
gorges, and rounded the majestic pillars of mountains. 
Water was the cradle and early home of all life. 
Water is today the great higlway of the world's com- 
merce. It fertilizes our fields, it gives us fruits, it is 
the mother of grains and the nurse of flowers. With- 
out water all life would cease, and our world would 
shrivel like the moon into a lifeless planet. 

And water has accomplished most of this great 
work through its weakness. It has been the "little 
waves" and not the big ones, it has been the little 
rills and not the great torrents, that have done most 

219 



•220 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



of this work. Not the terrible freshets or the roaring 
cataracts, but the gentle shower, the quiet dews, the 
patient and still rivers working silently have changed 
the face of the globe and are still changing it. 

I once spent much of one night and all of the 
next day in Mammoth Cave, traveling through its 
wonderful halls and avenues. Our walk was some 
eighteen or twenty miles long. The cave has winding 
archways, great halls, echoing chambers, mystic 
rivers, and silent lakes in which eyeless fish live in 
perpetual darkness. And this great silent realm has 
been hollowed out by a little stream of water which in 
most places a child can step across. There you see 
splendid pendants of stalactites twenty or thirty feet 
long, white as alabaster, hanging like rocky icicles 
from lofty ceilings. These are matched below by 
rising pillars of stalagmite, the one growing down 
from the point the drop leaves, the other growing up 
from the point the drop reaches. Sometimes these 
points meet, stalactite and stalagmite join, and they 
still continue to grow into fantastic pillars. All these 
are made by the slow and patient toil of the water. It 
is only by the slow work of drop after drop that the 
little line particles from the dripping water are ranged 
in order and these beautiful stone growths realized. 

In many parts of the cave, when you stop and hold 
your breath to listen, you hear the drip, drip, drip, 
incessantly going on. Tick, tick, tick, goes the cave 
clock, counting off the moments of that sunless world, 
measuring the eternal night where light never is. 



LITTLE WAVES 



221 



Thus the water works, not only hollowing out the 
great cave, but beautifying, decorating, festooning it 
with alabaster, and carving its pillars into a thou- 
sand grotesque shapes and fantastic images. Tourists 
imagine they see old men, cats, owls, eagles, angels, 
elephants, roses, dahlias, pine trees, and Gothic 
cathedrals, all worked out in this mammoth cave by 
water in the form of little waves, smaller rills, and 
still smaller drops, and water still more divided and 
subdivided until you could neither see nor feel it, 
except as imperceptible moisture continually busy at 
its exquisite molding and painting. 

Once I visited the less extensive but world-famous 
caves of Bellamar, Cuba, that some years later gave 
shelter to the hard-pressed Cubans in their struggle 
for liberty. There I saw stalactites which were said 
to be the largest in the world, some of them measur- 
ing forty feet in circumference. At another time I 
went through what seemed to me, in some respects, 
the most beautiful cave of all, the Luray cave of Vir- 
ginia, with its great halls lighted by hundreds of elec- 
tric lights which the guide turns on or off to increase 
the mystic power of the weird formations. 

Once, in my army days, a little squad of us, hard 
pressed with hunger, and thirsty and weary, found 
shelter in the mouth of Nick-a-Jack Cave, a few miles 
from Chattanooga. Out from under the heart of old 
Lookout Mountain, there comes a beautiful pearly 
stream of water, cool, sweet, and clear. Near by, 
under the shadow of a great old rock, we came upon 



222 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



a box of hardtack, left, lost, or forgotten, weeks, 
perhaps months before. The crackers were water- 
soaked and green with mildew, but they were delight- 
fully welcome all the same, and half an hour trans- 
formed us from tired, discouraged, almost despairing 
soldiers into cheerful and hopeful explorers. We 
followed the cave river up into the darkness, clam- 
bered over the rocks, tried the echoes, and well nigh 
lost ourselves in the mystic night that never was 
broken. Some day you will visit these and other 
caves elsewhere, and you will remember that they are 
all made by the ''little waves," whose persistence for 
many, many thousand years at length ''beat admis- 
sion" through the rocks. 

But it is not necessary to visit caves in order to 
see what the little waves may accomplish in a thou- 
sand years. Some of you have visited the Dells of the 
Wisconsin River, and have seen "Cold Water Canon," 
"Steamboat Rock," "Diamond Rock," "Witches' 
Gulch," "Cave of the Dark Waters," "Swallow 
Rock," "The Navy Yard," "Stand Rock," "Hornets' 
Nest," "Sugar Bowl," and a great many other 
strange, beautiful, and fantastic forms scooped, 
molded, and scraped by the Wisconsin River out of 
the rocky walls that press its sides and would fain 
obstruct its passage; but great as were the solid 
rocks, notwithstanding they had been hardened by 
pressure and by heat, the water, the slow, patient 
water has worked its way through, and every summer 
thousands of tourists go a long way for the sake of 



LITTLE WAVES 



223 



a ride on the little steamer ''Dell Queen," that ven- 
tures up and down this six- or eight-mile wonder-ride. 

But this is small work, this is river-play, com- 
pared with what the Colorado River has done, carv- 
ing out its Grand Canon three hundred miles long, 
walled in by perpendicular rocks in some places six 
thousand feet high. Away down at the bottom runs 
the wild little river that has done it all. It began 
its work away up there thousands of feet above the 
highest wall, and it keeps carving away, making more 
and more magnificent what is already the most won- 
derful gorge in the world. 

But you need not go to Wisconsin or to Arizona 
to see what water does. Every bluff you see, all the 
valleys you visit, are the works of rivers. Geologists 
tell us that the Catskill Mountains once reached to 
Massachusetts Bay, that the Cumberland Mountains 
stretched one hundred and fifty miles farther west 
than they now do; that where the city of Nashville 
now stands was once a level land one thousand feet 
above the present site; that one-half of Tennessee has 
been scraped away, and carried into the Gulf of Mex- 
ico, piecing out Alabama and Mississippi on the south. 
The Alleghanies are old and wasted ; once, when 
there were no human eyes on earth to see them, they 
were three thousand feet higher than they are now; 
their summits have mostly gone down into the Gulf 
of Mexico. 

The sand on the lake shore is powdered rock, 
powdered by water. Most pebbles, particularly the 



224 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



smaller ones, have been rounded and polished by- 
water. The mud, which in springtime is so unat- 
tractive but in summer time is so fertile, has been 
made and brought thither by water. 

I repeat, water is the great architect; water is the 
beautiful painter; water is one of God's tools in mak- 
ing, shaping, and changing the world. And this it is 
able to do, not because it is strong, but because it is 
persistent. ''Weak as water?" Yes, water is weak. 
But "strong as water," because water is tireless, 
diligent, persistent. Water works, and works, and 
works and never ceases to work. 

Did you think of all this and more when you 
selected for your motto the beautiful lines of Tennyson 
taken out of the heart of his beautiful poem, "The 
Princess?" 

No rock so hard but that a little wave 
May beat admission in a thousand years. 

I think you chose it because you knew something of 
what I have been hinting at, and you saw how it 
might apply to your lives and mine. It was the 
"thousand years," the suggestion of persistency, that 
appealed to your imagination and pleased your fancy. 

Man is one of the weakest of animals. In infancy 
he is the most helpless, and in old age the most 
pathetic. Nature leaves him in a very pitiable plight. 
The past winter has not been a hard one, but it has 
been cold enough to freeze to death every man, 
woman, and child living north of the Ohio river if 
they were left as nature leaves them; and the sum- 



LITTLE WAVES 



225 



mer will be hot enough to kill with sunstroke or 
prostration, most of the people in our country who 
live south of the Ohio river unless they avail them- 
selves of protection and help other than that which 
nature provides. Man's body is by nature unpro- 
tected from the cold of winter and the heat of sum- 
mer, and inadequate to contend with the wild beast 
and the still wilder storms. 

But man has mind, by the use of which, slowly, 
through many, many thousand years, working like 
the ''little wave," he has gained admission into com- 
fort, competency, power. By the use of his brain he 
has made him a coat warmer than the bear's, and 
weapons stronger and more formidable than the 
claws of the tiger or the jaws of the lion. By means 
of his brain he has changed his enemies into friends, 
won into his service his natural foes. He has con- 
verted the dog, whose instinct was to prey upon the 
sheep and to devour flesh, into a protector of the 
sheep and the best companion of man. Little by little, 
like the waves working upon the rock, man has 
worked his way through ignorance, violence, and 
weakness. He has shaped the iron in such a way 
that it floats on water and carries him and his handi- 
work to remote parts of the globe. He has changed 
water into steam, and thus added to its power so that 
it draws him over the mountains or through them. 
He has felled forests, harnessed rivers, made dry the 
swamps and fertile the deserts. 

All the great achievements of history represent 



226 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



the power of the "Httle wave" beating against the 
rock of obstacles. Progress comes by the beating of 
Httle waves against the soHd rocks of difficulties and 
opposition. Someone has said, "When God would 
educate a man, he puts him to the school of adver- 
sity." We know that Milton was quite blind, Dante 
became almost blind in the later years of his life, and 
legend tells us that Homer, the great singer of the 
Greeks, was also blind. Henry Fawcett, when an 
ambitious young man in his college years, was acci- 
dentally deprived of sight by the unforeseen dis- 
charge of his father's gun. "Never mind, father, 
blindness shall not interfere with my success in life," 
said the boy, and by persistency like that of the "little 
wave," he won admission not only into learning, but 
into power and usefulness. He became a prominent 
member of the English Parliament, a great debater, 
and finally the great English postmaster-general under 
Gladstone. Arthur Kavanagh, a man born without 
arms and legs, became a member of Parliament, elo- 
quent and influential, a good rider, and a lover of 
sport. In the Antwerp Cathedral in 1882, I saw the 
man who has won fame and wealth by copying 
Rubens' great pictures that hang in the noble 
cathedral, and this man had no arms, but was busy 
painting with his toes. Surely, 

No rock so hard but that a little wave 

May beat admission. 

Edison says that he spent seven months working 
from eighteen to twenty hours a day before he could 



LITTLE WAVES 



227 



get the phonograph to say "specia." Back and back 
again — the phonograph would only say ''pecia." He 
could not make it report the "/''-sound. Says the 
great discoverer, ''It was enough to drive one mad, 
but I held firm and I succeeded." The 'little wave" 
"had beat admission" through the hard rock. 

Said Ole Bull, "If I practice one day I can see 
the result. If I practice two days, my friends can 
see it. If I practice three days, the great public can 
see it." 

Kitto, a great biblical scholar, was a deaf pauper 
who used to patch shoes in the almshouse. But he 
studied and studied, and wrote and wrote, and he 
gained admission. The little wave must beat often 
against the rock of difficulty before it gains admis- 
sion even in the name of genius. 

It is easy to find stories of those who have become 
great through patience and diligence. I would like to 
tell how Elias Howe, while perfecting the sewing- 
machine in London, lived on beans which he cooked 
himself ; how Titian, the great artist, used to crush 
flowers in order to make his colors, because he had no 
money to buy them. And you will think for your- 
selves of the story of our Abraham Lincoln who, 
from the log cabin in Indiana, worked his way to the 
White House and into the hearts of the civilized 
world, until his name has become the best-loved name 
of the nineteenth century. 

Green's History of the English People is perhaps 
the best history of England yet written. He wrote 



228 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



it when fighting with a mortal disease. He dictated 
some of his great works while lying on a bed of 
suffering, day by day awaiting death ; too weak to lift 
a book or hold a pen, but so anxious to do it well that 
he redictated some of the chapters five times and 
kept at it and at it, and not until he was actually 
dying did he say, "I can work no more/' 

It is safe to say that all great triumphs have been 
won by diligence, by the patience and persistency of 
the little wave beating against the rock that must 
ultimately crumble before it. 

You all know how much of Bunker Hill is above 
ground; you can tell how tall it is, but you may not 
stop to think that there are fifty feet of Bunker Hill 
under ground. The engineer knew that that tall 
granite shaft could not stand unless it rested on a 
foundation deeper than frosts, mud, shifting sands, 
and yielding soils. He planted it on the backbone of 
old Mother Earth. So our achievements must rest 
on foundations out of sight, upon slow persistency, 
quiet diligence, tireless industry. A pianist about 
whom great crowds were accustomed to gather once 
said that he never ventured to perform one of his 
pieces in public until he had played it over at least 
fifteen hundred times. It was the little wave beating 
continuously against awkwardness and ignorance that 
finally gained admission into the temple of music. 

I have been using great names, my children, but I 
have been talking about what affects your lives and 
mine. We common people, we little folk, have in us 



LITTLE WAVES 



229 



the power of the "Httle wave," and we can win admis- 
sion, not to great mental achievements, perhaps, for 
they are for the few, and probably not to great 
wealth, for only a few become wealthy, but to that 
success which will make you wealthy without money 
and happy even without what the world calls popu- 
larity or influence. I ask you to remember this beauti- 
ful text of Tennyson's as being true in regard to the 
common, obscure, and blessed life of usefulness and 
kindliness which is within the reach of all, and is 
often the lot of those who never become great. 

There are many things I would like to say to you, 
my children, but the chief lesson of the text you have 
chosen is "persistence." Stick to it! Do not give up! 
Do not get discouraged! Said Charles Sumner, the 
great senator, "Only three things are necessary in 
life: First, backbone; second, backbone; third, back- 
bone." Said William Lloyd Garrison, when he started 
his little Liberator, a bit of a sheet printed in a Boston 
attic, a sheet at which gentlemen and scholars sneered, 
"I am in earnest. I will not equivocate. I will not 
excuse. I will not retreat a single inch — and I will 
be heard." This was the splendid printer who became 
the friend of the friendless^ the champion of the 
slave, and who, more than any other man I can 
think of, helped to make human slavery repugnant to 
every civilized man. This was the man for whose 
head the governor of Georgia offered a bounty of 
five thousand dollars. This was the man around 
whose neck a Boston mob threw a rope and dragged 



230 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



him to jail. They erected a gallows in front of his 
house as a warning, but he lived up to his motto. 
And at last his word "Freedom" became the song of 
the nation. You may not be a Lloyd Garrison, but 
you may learn from him the price of admission into 
your usefulness and into your happiness. I do not 
expect you to win eminence, but I want you to learn 
from those who have become eminent what road you 
common boys and common girls must travel if you 
would reach your best, which is as good for you as 
their best is for them. 

Remember the boy's rule for learning to skate — 
"Get up every time you fall down." Louisa Alcott, 
whose books you love, was once very poor. When 
she offered the manuscript of her first book to the 
publishers, they sent it back and advised her to stick 
to her teaching. We are told that she wrote An Old 
Fashioned Girl with her "left hand in a sling, one 
foot up, head aching, and no voice." But she worked 
away until she had earned two hundred thousand 
dollars by her pen, it is said, and lifted her family out 
of poverty into independence. The waves had gained 
admission by constant beating. 

My little friends, the kite flies high because the 
string holds it down. The bird is able to fly because 
the air offers resistance to its wings. If there were 
no resisting air, the bird would drop. So we must 
learn to rise by virtue of difficulties, to get ahead by 
climbing over obstacles, to succeed by using the tools 
that are near. A few months ago there was a great 



LITTLE WAVES 



231 



deal of sickness in Pittsburg. Typhoid fever and 
diphtheria were raging. A young man trained by 
science, who beHeved, as most scientists now do, that 
the germs of diseases are conveyed in drinking-water, 
came to think that they might be filtered out of the 
water by passing it through sand of a cer- 
tain grade and in a certain fashion. Ac- 
cordingly, he and some other young men raised 
seven or eight hundred dollars and erected a house in 
the corner of a church lot where they constructed an 
experimental filter. They looked about and found 
the right kind of sand right there in Pittsburg, 
arranged their reservoir according to the most ap- 
proved pattern, and then turned in the water 
and let the people in the neighborhood carry 
it away for drinking purposes as it came out 
below. Every day these young men would go 
to their little laboratory and examine the raw water 
as it went in and the filtered water as it came out, 
and carefully note how large a percentage of the 
microbes were taken out in the process of filtration. 
At first the papers made fun of them, and citizens 
laughed at them. But statistics proved the sound- 
ness of their theory, and poor people came daily to 
carry away the pure water. Then the doctors became 
interested, the board of health looked into the matter, 
and the common council began to consider the problem 
of building great sand filters to purify the water for 
the citizens of Pittsburg. 

These young men did not go to Palestine for their 



232 LOVE AND LOYALTY 

sand, no more did they try to bring Jordan water to 
Pittsburg; but they took the common, muddy water 
of the Ohio or the Alleghany, and they ran it through 
home sand, Pittsburg sand, thereby proving how close 
within their reach was the means of health. So let 
your quest be to utilize the things that are near at 
hand. Do not try to evade the solid rock, and do not 
despise the ''little wave," but let it beat against the 
great obstacles, and you will find admission there. 

I have talked about the wave and the rock, but I 
have not dwelt upon the "thousand years." Let us 
take this thought for our ''lastly." Oh, children, it is 
great to work on long lines, great to think long 
thoughts, great to be able to act independently of 
"quick returns" or cheap success. Robert Browning, 
in his "Grammarian's Funeral," sang of a patient 
scholar who died before he had accomplished his task, 
one who seemed to have failed because he worked for 
ends so high that they were beyond his reach : 

Oh, if we draw a circle premature, 

Heedless of far gain, 
Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure, 

Bad is our bargain! 



That low man seeks a little thing to do, 

Sees it and does it: 
This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 

Dies ere he knows it. 

That low man goes on adding one to one, 
His hundred's soon hit: 



LITTLE WAVES 



233 



This high man, aiming at a million, 
Misses an unit. 

That, has the world here — should he need the next, 

Let the world mind him ! 
This, throws himself on God, and unperplext 

Seeking shall find him. 

The same poet said, "Better fail in the high aim than 
vulgarly succeed in the low aim." Live for high 
things. Work on long lines. Do not spend your pre- 
cious life for cheap things and near success. 

One day, many years ago, as I was sitting at my 
table, soon after my arrival in Chicago, there came 
through the window the clear notes of a bugle, than 
which there are none more inspiring. It sounded 
some of the old calls which I had learned to obey in 
army days. It brought before my mind's eye pic- 
tures that had well nigh faded away; I saw moving 
columns, waving banners. I heard the clatter of 
cavalry sabers and the rattle of artillery wheels, and 
my heart was big with memories of the great strug- 
gle and its high results. Once more the notes came, 
now farther down the street, and I thought, "There 
is some battalion moving, a military column is pass- 
ing by, some parade or escort." I seized my hat, and, 
like a boy, hurried around the corner in quest of 
marching men. But I saw no army, I could catch 
no glimpse of a flag. Again the bugle sounded, now 
around another corner I pursued it, when, lo ! I found 
that the bugle was being blown by a popcorn man. 
How often have I been reminded of the popcorn 



234 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



bugler. When I hear an appeal to high sentiments 
for cheap things, great phrases used to justify small 
purposes, the inspiration of high principles invoked 
for petty ends, as when selfish and scheming poli- 
ticians appeal to the American flag in justification of 
their "ward tricks" and partisan schemes; when the 
great words of religion, God, spirit, soul, and duty 
are used to justify bigotry, narrowness, and selfish- 
ness; when in the name of religion and morality, 
men and women work for little sects and selfish church 
schemes, excuse loyalty to small things and petty 
names because large things and great hopes are so 
far away, let us prefer to work rather for the things 
that seem impossible, for the good that seems out of 
reach. Let us believe in the impracticable and work 
for what is called the impossible, resting secure in the 
truth of our motto. 

No rock so hard but that a little wave 
May beat admission in a thousand years. 



VICTORIES 



ARMAGEDDON 



Marching down to Armageddon — 

Brothers, stout and strong! 
Let us cheer the way we tread on 

With a soldier's song! 
Faint we by the weary road. 

Or fall we in the rout, 
Dirge or Paean, Death or Triumph! — 

Let the song ring out! 

We are they who scorn the scorners — 

Love the lovers — hate 
None within the world's four corners — 

All must share one fate; 
We are they whose common banner 

Bears no badge nor sign, 
Save the Light which dyes it white — 

The Hope that makes it shine. 

We are they whose bugle rings. 

That all the wars may cease; 
We are they will pay the Kings 

Their cruel price for Peace; 
We are they whose steadfast watchword 

Is what Christ did teach, — 
"Each man for his Brother first — 

And Heaven, then, for each." 

We are they who will not falter — 

Many swords or few — 
Till we make this Earth the altar 

Of a worship new; 
We are they who will not take 

From palace, priest, or code, 
A meaner law than "Brotherhood" — 

A lower Lord than God. 

— Edwin Arnold 



XIII 



VICTORIES 

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for 
humanity. — Horace Mann 

These were the closing words in the baccalaureate 
address of the great Horace Mann to the last class 
which was graduated at Antioch College under his 
administration. It was in 1859. The next day after the 
notable address, the great teacher lay almost speech- 
less in a darkened room. The fire of the brain had 
blazed up into a consuming agony. In a few days he 
lay tossing in a fever that was to be his last. The 
weather was hot and dry. Everything lay parched 
and thirsting. When the rain came he called it ''heav- 
enly music," and whispered, 'T am making agricul- 
tural calculations. I cannot help it." The silence 
deepened. The college gate was tied back that its 
swing might not disturb him, but the end was fast 
approaching, and with his head ''hot as a cannon ball" 
he gathered about him his faithful friends and stu- 
dents. His great words were, "Man, Duty, God!" 
To his friend and pastor. Rev. Eli Fay, he said, 
"Preach God's laws ! Preach them! Preach them.' ! 
PREACH THEM ! ! !" And so the candle that 
was lit at both ends early in life, that had burned 
intensely with the light that penetrated dark places, 
flickered and went out. 

On the humble granite shaft that rises in the 
237 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



campus of Antioch College, at Yellow Springs, Ohio, 
there is engraved the simple inscription, 

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for 
humanity. 

It is my purpose to indicate a few ways in which it 
is possible for us all to win victories for humanity; 
for these victories are not alone for the masterful, 
the great conquerors who rise above the common 
levels as the peaks of the Rocky Mountains rise above 
our western plains. There are victories for the 
weak, triumphs for the humble, achievements pos- 
sible to common men and common women, splendid 
conquests within reach of boys and girls. 

The first victories I would speak of are the victor- 
ies over nature, the conquests of matter. The forces 
of nature may be likened to wild and fiery horses, 
which man may harness, train, and drive. They bear 
us along in the ways we should go, they serve us, they 
help us, they are indispensable. So long as we can 
drive and guide them, they are the allies of civiliza- 
tions, the servants of religion, the helpers of morality, 
but when we lose control of them we are in danger 
of being trampled under their feet, or mangled by the 
wheels of the chariot they draw. 

Professor N. S. Shaler, of Harvard University, 
in his delightful book entitled The Domestication of 
Animals, shows that man's progress has been largely 
dependent upon the co-operation which he has 
received from our poor relations of the farmyard. 
Man's victory over the animal world has brought him 



VICTORIES 



239 



the service of the dog, the ox, the horse, the sheep, 
the camel, and the elephant. One of his greatest and 
earliest victories was that of converting some sly, 
thieving enemy of man, an animal probably akin to 
the wolf and the fox, into the dog, the friend of man, 
the companion of children, the guardian of the home 
and the flocks. This victory over nature was won so 
early in the career of the race that science scarcely 
finds any trace of primitive man where he does not 
also find evidence that the dog was his companion. 

"He who makes two blades of grass grow where 
one grew before is a benefactor of the race." This is 
an old, good, and true saying. Perhaps the first sug- 
gestion of such wisdom came to us through the great 
Zoroaster, the prophet of labor, the man who in the 
name of religion first insisted on the piety of tilling 
the soil, of house-building, and settled home-making. 
There is a wild rice that grows in our shallow lakes, 
and there are grasses that produce seed somewhat 
related to the oats, barley, rye, and wheat which the 
farmer raises, but they produce no more than a 
limited supply of food for the birds. Man can 
scarcely thrive on wild rice and wild millet, the wild 
plum and the crab apple, even when such meager fare 
is eked out with fish caught in the stream, deer 
entangled in the snare, and birds brought down by the 
arrow. It took human skill and industry to domesti- 
cate and develop the wild grasses until they should 
yield the grain that may be manufactured into flour 
and converted into bread. The possibilities of nature 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



are still unexhausted, there are great fields uncon- 
quered, splendid forces untamed. 

Franklin and Morse captured the lightning and 
tamed and harnessed it so that we drive it and force 
it to draw our loads, run upon our errands, and 
carry our messages. Watt and Stevenson conquered 
the force in the tea-kettle, and we compel it to drive 
our great iron ships across the ocean in the face of 
wind and tide and drag the great railroad trains from 
shore to shore. And do we not now stand on the 
brink of mystery land? From laboratory and observa- 
tory, from college and workshop, from the careful 
observer in the orchard to the learned professor in the 
college, there runs a hushed whisper of new marvels 
about to be discovered, new forces almost within 
reach, fresh surprises almost ready. It is but yester- 
day that Roentgen enabled us to look at the bones in 
our own hands and to see through an oak plank or a 
book. Today the electrician is ready to send a mes- 
sage to a friend in mid-ocean, spelling the message on 
the instrument at this end of the line, while the great, 
throbbing responsive heart of the air carries and 
delivers it to the instrument, letter to letter and sign 
to sign as it is spelled here. Oh, there are still great 
victories to be won over nature in the interest of 
humanity. 

Some time ago I attended the commencement exer- 
cises of one of the great technical schools of the 
country. Here one of the graduates exhibited and 
explained an apparatus constructed by himself and a 



VICTORIES 



241 



classmate for measuring the electric ''permeability" of 
various substances. What is that? You do not know. 
Neither do I, but I could see by the light on the boy's 
face and the pride of the teachers that a victory had 
been won over nature in the interests of humanity, a 
victory that would help man climb into the saddle and 
save himself from being trampled underfoot and 
run over by the giant forces of this world. 

Next came a young woman who gave us the 
result of a study of the different yeast cakes obtain- 
able in the market. For three months she had worked 
with solvent and microscope over the seven different 
kinds of yeast with which the women of that town 
made bread, and she told these mothers and house- 
keepers of the dangerous bacteria that she found in the 
yeast cakes, all of which tended to make sour bread, 
sick stomachs, bad tempers, and discouraged spirits. 
I could not understand all the terms which this bright 
as well as sweet girl graduate used ; I could not 
always tell what she was talking about; but I could 
see very clearly that there in her laboratory she had 
been winning victories for humanity, and when the 
time comes for her to die she need not be ashamed, 
because she has conquered some ignorance, she has 
won a victory over filth and fraud. Surely the good 
Father of us all has living laurels to deck the brow of 
the school girl who wins a triumph in the interests of 
good bread, healthy digestion, a cheerful temper, and 
the high courage that springs therefrom. 

Another graduate told us about the polluted waters 



242 



, LOVE AND LOYALTY 



of the Wabash River after it has flowed through 
what ought to be the clean and wise as well as beauti- 
ful city of Lafayette. Above the city he had found 
the water unpolluted, fresh, clean, health-giving; but 
many careful analyses and months of work with the 
microscope had enabled him to demonstrate, with the 
aid of charts, that the water below the city was 
charged with the germs of disease and pestilence, and 
that typhoid, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and cholera 
journey in the waters between the beautiful banks of 
the Wabash below the city of Lafayette; and he 
showed further that this is because the citizens empty 
their sewage, unload their filth-carts, deposit the 
sweepings of their streets, and tumble their dead dogs 
and horses into the Wabash. That boy, fresh in his 
young manhood, in the glory of his first graduation, 
stood confirmed as one of the helpers of mankind. 
He had wrung from nature her secret; he had 
achieved a "victory for humanity." If need be he 
could die without a blush, for he had not lived in 
vain. 

If it is not for you to raise colts and train them, to 
cause orchards to grow where before were under- 
brush and thicket; if it is not for you to change 
swamps into clover fields and drive Jersey cows into 
a paradise for cattle, thus helping feed the world 
with sweet butter and fresh milk; if you cannot add 
to the petals of the wild rose the reduplication and 
intensified color of the American Beauty; if you can- 
not supplant bad bread with good, or improve the 



VICTORIES 



243 



quality of water in your hydrants; if there are no 
victories over material nature which you may con- 
sciously win for humanity, there remain the possibili- 
ties of still nobler victories over human nature; for 
it is as true now as in the Bible days that — ^ 
He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, 
And he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. 

Every victory over self is a victory for humanity. 
No exaltation is more fine or more needed than an 
exaltation of the will over one's desires and passions. 
We need to conquer fashion, false custom, and bad 
habits. A breach made into the walls behind which 
lurk these great enemies of progress and purity weak- 
ens the fortress and hastens the day when humanity 
will triumph over them. What are the great foes 
which threaten society today? Conventionality, big- 
otry, pride, and love of ease. While these rule we are 
always poor, when these are conquered we are always 
rich. When a wealthy man begged of Socrates to 
accept the permanent hospitality of his elegant home, 
asking, "why need you continue to live in this 
meager way, with these few comforts and humble 
surroundings?" Socrates replied, "Meal can be pur- 
chased at half a peck for a penny. There is good 
water in the brook free to all. These give to me the 
needed sustenance. Why should I not continue to 
teach the youths of Athens?" 

When Benjamin Franklin was a poor printer in 
Philadelphia, fighting a hard battle to keep his first 
newspaper alive, a gentleman called with an article 



244 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



for whose publication he promised to pay liberally, 
at the same time hinting of further pay for further 
service of this kind. "Call tomorrow morning and I 
will give you my answer," said the young and strug- 
gling printer. At the time appointed the man came 
in the pride of his wealth and confident that he 
was needed by the printer. "I have read your 
article, sir," said young Franklin. "It is a scurrilous 
article. It will do no good to anyone, not even to 
yourself, and it will do much harm by stirring up bad 
feeling and injuring the innocent. Last night I 
bought a loaf of bread for a penny upon which with a 
mug of water I supped bountifully, after which I 
rolled myself in my overcoat and slept on the floor of 
my printing-office. This morning with a fresh mug 
of water and what was left of the loaf, I breakfasted, 
and am in good health and strength. I see no reason 
why I should dirty my hands with your dirty money. 
I decline the article, sir." 

When a young man, Stonewall Jackson, the hero 
of the Confederacy, lived a whole year on buttermilk 
and stale bread, and thereby conquered his great 
enemy dyspepsia. 

The power of Von Moltke, the great German 
general, was explained by a friend by the fact that 
"he could hold his tongue in seven languages." 

Said Samuel J. May to a man who fain would 
justify his drinking habit, "If it is a small sacrifice to 
do without your wine, you ought to do it for the sake 



VICTORIES 



245 



of others. If it is a great sacrifice to do without your 
wine, you ought to do it for your own sake." 

Said Agassiz, "I have no time to make money." 

When a youth, Faraday had to choose between a 
fortune and a studious hfe. He chose poverty. 

When a young rival, in a moment of jealousy and 
anger, struck Michael Angelo in the face with such 
force that, as the young man himself expressed it 
later to Cellini, he felt bones and cartilage crush 
under his fist like a biscuit, Michael Angelo retorted 
with the statement, "You will be remembered only 
as the man who broke my nose." 

*'0h. Diamond, Diamond, you little know the mis- 
chief you have wrought!" said Sir Isaac Newton to 
his pet dog who, by upsetting a taper, had set fire to 
a sheet containing the results of most laborious calcu- 
lations; and then he quietly sat down to go over 
again the tedious and painful mathematical toil. 

You see how easy it is to pile illustration on illus- 
tration to show that a victory over self is a victory for 
humanity. The only triumphs that bring permanent 
strength are the triumphs over self. How it behooves 
us, then, to struggle for the victories of Sir Galahad, 

Whose strength was as the strength of ten 
Because his heart was pure, 

to seek the triumphs of Felix Holt in George Eliot's 
story, who dared ''follow those who did not follow 
fashion." 

Boys, dare you do the simple brave things for 
which the other boys will laugh at you — refuse the 



246 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



cigarette, renounce the expensive habit, wear the 
plain clothes that you can pay for and be satisfied 
with the plain speech that is sanctioned by the dic- 
tionary and that brings no blush to the cheek of 
mother or sister? 

Girls, dare you live on that high plane where the 
dress is sensible, the speech simple, the habit non-con- 
ventional and unfashionable, when common sense so 
requires? The girl who today gives room in her 
shoes for her toes and does not insult the dignity and 
beauty of her brow with the dead bird's wing, wins a 
victory for humanity which will help make death 
beds comfortable. 

My young friends, "be ashamed to die until you 
have won some victory" over self for humanity's 
sake! 

But I want to place the emphasis where Horace 
Mann placed it, on the word ''humanity," and ask 
you, my young friends, to begin early to cultivate 
that consciousness of humanity which will make the 
plural pronoun "we" and "ours" more familiar to 
your aspirations and your purposes than the singular 
pronouns "I" and "mine." "Be ashamed to die until 
you have won some victory" — not for yourself, not 
for your family, not for your church, your city, state, 
or country, but for humanity. The religious advice 
under which Horace Mann grew up was emphatically, 
"Save your own soul, make your own salvation and 
calling sure. Escape hell and win heaven for your- 
self ; that is your first business, your primal thought." 



VICTORIES 



247 



But Horace Mann mellowed and ripened under the 
larger inspirations that taught Whittier to say, 

The soul is lost that's saved alone. 
Horace Mann helped to develop the piety in which 
the truly devout most delight, the piety which says: 
"There is no individual salvation. There is no heaven 
for the foremost soul while there is left a solitary 
soul in that outer darkness where 'there is weeping 
and gnashing of teeth.' " No matter how well folded 
the ninety-and-nine may be, the Master is out wander- 
ing among the hills in search of the one stray sheep, 
and his heart is unsatisfied until it is found. The 
bars will be kept open until the last comes in. Horace 
Mann's great message must be interpreted at its high- 
est. It can mean nothing meaner or smaller than the 
great principles taught by Sally Pratt McLean Greene 
in the simple dialect poem which we have all learned 
to love: 

De Massa ob de Sheepfol', 

Dat guard de sheepfol' bin, 

Look out in de gloomerin' meadows, 

Whar de long night rain begin — 

So he call to de hirelin' Shepa'd, 

Is my sheep, is dey all come in? 

O, den says the hirelin' Shepa'd, 
Day's some, dey's black and thin, 
And some, dey's po' ol' wedda's 
But de res' dey's all brung in. 
But de res' dey's all brung in. 

Den de Massa of de sheepfol, 
Dat guard the sheepfol' bin, 



248 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



Goes down in the gloomerin' meadows 
Whar de long night rain begin — 
So he le' down de ba's ob de sheepfol', 
Calling sof, Come in, Come in, 
Calling sof. Come in. Come in, 

Den up t'ro de gloomerin' meadows 
T'ro de col' night rain and win', 
And up t'ro de gloomerin' rain'paf, 
Whar de sleet fa' pie'cin' thin, 
De po' los' sheep ob de sheepfol' 
Dey all comes gadderin' in; 
De po' los' sheep ob de sheepfol' 
Dey all conies gadderin' in. 

The message of Horace ]^Iann calls upon you, 
young men and women, to put a nobler meaning into 
the word ''society ;" it summons you out of the "Soci- 
ety" that delights in a capital ''S," the ''Society" that 
is the cause of so much fever among women and so 
much financial anxiety among men, into society in the 
higher sense, the original sense, that of socius — 
sharing, partaking, a partner, a fellow, an ally. This 
is the society which is the fabric of civilization, woven 
with the web of law and the woof of experience, a 
fabric in which you and I and everybody are indi- 
vidual threads, weak and inadequate when taken 
alone, but taken together, forming the priceless tex- 
ture into which are woven the great figures of history 
and the divine element in humanitv^ Let us be 
ashamed to die until we have won some victory for 
humanity. 

When war was raging in the Crimea and cholera 



VICTORIES 



249 



was adding its devastation to the work of the cannon, 
Florence Nightingale went with her thirty-four assist- 
ant women nurses, caused the pestilential swamps 
where the hospitals were located to be drained, estab- 
lished her laundries and invalid kitchens, arranged 
for the entertainment of the convalescents, and 
changed that hell into a heaven. 

This is the testimony of a private soldier : ''Before 
she came there was such cussin' and swearin' and 
after that it was as holy as a church." But not all 
this represents the highest victory won by Florence 
Nightingale for humanity. When she came back, a 
grateful English people showed their gratitude by 
presenting to her a large purse of money which she 
immediately used in establishing what was, I believe, 
the first regular school for the training of women 
nurses in the world. In these graduation days, 
women are numbered by the hundreds who receive 
their diplomas from training-schools for nurses, and 
go out into the world to represent the true "Christian 
science," for in them science joins hand with religion, 
knowledge comes into partnership with piety, and the 
trained hand lends itself to the enlightened mind as 
well as to the consecrated heart of the trained nurse, 
the woman whose very garb is a badge of honor, 
carrying with it a grace and winsomeness which the 
self-seeking lady of the drawing-room and the club 
has not money enough to buy from a Parisian mil- 
liner. Her greatest victory for humanity is found 
in the establishment of these schools, which repre- 



250 LOVE AND LOYALTY 

sent the topmost buds on the great tree of evolution, 
at whose roots is the "medicine man" with his super- 
stitious mummery and his mystical black art. 

Following in this holy line of the unvowed sister- 
hood of mercy comes the irrepressible Mother Bicker- 
dyke of own Civil War, who out-generaled the gen- 
erals and became at once the friend and counselor of 
the humblest private and the commander-in-chief. 
She won a victory for humanity because she worked 
not for herself but for others. 

And there is still another woman to be mentioned 
in this connection. Clara Barton, the demure little 
nurse in the Army of the Potomac, lived to win the 
greatest diplomatic victory of her generation when in 
the Geneva Convention she did so much in organizing 
the International Association of the Red Cross and 
securing for it official recognition from the great 
powers of Europe and America. 

The time was when the lovers of nature and of 
beauty were content with urging the farmer to plant 
shade trees in his front yard, to beautify his own 
garden with fruit trees and blossoming shrubs; but 
now it is a mean and poor farmer who stops here. 
The public demand is that he plant shrubs and flowers 
along the highway for the benefit of the public, and 
for this alone will the public give thanks. A mean 
man will put a water tank in his barnyard for the 
benefit of his own stock, but the noble man carries 
the water to the roadside and there erects his water- 
ing-trough for the benefit of the other man's horse 



VICTORIES 



that pants feverishly under his heavy load, going 
from, the farmer knows not where, to the farmer 
knows not whither. 

Thus far the quest for wealth has enlisted the 
energies of our young men and women. Let this go 
on, but to you, young friends, let me say that your 
place in the world and your peace of mind in life or 
death will not be determined by the amount of wealth 
you accumulate for yourself, but by your contribu- 
tions to the commonwealth of the world. You should 
hold in highest esteem your title to those things that 
you own in common with all others. The school 
house, from the humblest log building in the clear- 
ings up to the noblest building of the state university, 
the post-office, the public library, the museum, the 
parks, the highways and the streets, belong to you 
and to me. This is ''property" which makes the poor- 
est rich, and without which the richest would be poor 
and helpless indeed. Let our struggle be to increase 
this commonwealth, to guard its interests, and conse- 
crate its resources. 

Under the old ethics it was left for individual 
enterprise and speculation to span the river with the 
bridge for the use of which the public would evermore 
pay toll to private capitalist. But under the new 
ethics, the public builds the bridge for the benefit of 
the public, and it becomes a free highway to humanity 
for evermore. Our immediate forefathers traveled 
along turnpikes and plank roads owned by private 
corporations and paid their toll for every mile they 



252 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



traveled. Now the toll gates have, for the most part, 
become a thing of the past, and wealth invested in 
turnpikes has become common wealth. The tramp 
travels the highways as freely as the millionaire. In 
the future we must tremendously augment this com- 
mon wealth; and may the dying message of Horace 
Mann inspire you, my young friends, to make vic- 
tories in the interest of humanity in this direction. I 
believe that the time is coming when steam cars and 
electric ways will represent a part of the common 
wealth of the w^orld as much as the reclaimed turn- 
pikes of the present, and when winter halls and other 
places of indoor rendezvous shall become as much a 
part of the public provision for the comfort of the 
public as our summer parks and boulevards are today. 
You must help win these victories for humanity. The 
old ethics made us zealous for "Presbyterianism" or 
"Unitarianism," developed a "Christian" or a "Budd- 
hist" consciousness. The new ethics teaches us to 
despise the ''isms" that divide, to respect the prin- 
ciples that unite, and to honor the church of the people, 
built by the people and for the people, the Cathedral 
of Love, however humble the architecture, the Min- 
ister of Humanity, worthy of the noblest form and 
most permanent interest. 

Let my last and most potent illustration be from 
the great prophet of the public schools of America, 
who has already given us text and inspiration for our 
sermon. In the address in which we found our text, 
he said, "Nothing today prevents this earth from 



VICTORIES 



253 



being a paradise but error and sin." And again, "The 
judge may condemn an innocent man, but posterity 
will condemn the judge." It was Horace Mann who, 
on the threshold of a brilliant career, after having sat 
in the legislature of Massachusetts for eight years, 
during two of which he was the presiding officer of 
the upper house, when wealth, honor, and ease were 
within his reach, gave them all up, tacked on his 
office door in Boston the words ''to let," and adver- 
tised his law library "for sale" in order that he might 
accept the secretaryship of the Board of Education 
for the state of Massachusetts, at a salary of fifteen 
hundred dollars a year. The office was a new one, 
the first of the kind in the United States, and the 
''Board of Education" was created through his own 
influence. He said in explanation, "I have changed 
venue; I appeal from this generation to the next. 
Men and women are cast iron. Children are wax. 
Henceforth I work for the children." 

And so, single handed and alone, he went into 
the great work that called into being the public-school 
"system" of America, for, although there were public 
schools before the days of Horace Mann, there was 
no public-school system. Normal schools, teachers' 
institutes, district libraries, blackboards, globes, and 
other apparatus he called into being. He lifted 
public-school teaching into a liberal profession. He 
opened a great door to woman, and compelled wealth, 
culture, and even social pretension to rejoice in the 
schools that were indeed common schools. 



254 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



At the end of twelve years of untiring work, John 
Quincy Adams, the great and noble, fell in his seat in 
Congress, and Horace Mann was called to occupy 
the chair that had never been dishonored by boodle 
or self-seeking. For four years in Washington he 
made himself the friend of the friendless, and cham- 
pioned the cause of the down-trodden. He became 
the orator of the slave. At the end of these four 
years, on September 15, 1852, he was nominated as a 
candidate for governor of Massachusetts, and the 
same day elected president of an unorganized college 
in an obscure district in what was then the "Far 
West." On the one hand were the unquestioned 
honor and high position of governor of the great 
state of Massachusetts; on the other hand the obscu- 
rity, uncertainty, and poverty of an untried venture 
in the backwoods. Which would he take? How 
would he choose ? 

In the choice itself was a great victory for 
humanity. He chose the harder, the more uncertain 
task. He said, "Other people will be glad to be 
governors of the state of Massachusetts, but not many 
will care to go to Ohio and try to realize these ideals 
which I have so much at heart." And so, with tears 
running down his manly cheeks, he left his Massa- 
chusetts home to become the president of Antioch 
College, then but a great hope planted amid the 
stumps and malaria of a new country. Here he wel- 
comed his first class before the roof was yet on the 
college building. Here for seven years he worked in 



VICTORIES 



255 



the interest of the college where for the first time 
many great interests of humanity were experiments, a 
college where men and women were admitted to 
equal privileges, where black and white had equal 
rights, and where no creed or lack of creed could con- 
dition the welcome, the fellowship, or the standing of 
a student. 

Horace Mann died with Antioch College but a 
struggling school in the wilderness. Antioch College 
is still living from hand to mouth, a school poorly sus- 
tained and little known, but his triumph is written in 
the triumph of Cornell, Leland Stanford, and every 
non-sectarian, co-educational and inter-racial college 
in America, for they represent the public spirit that at 
the expense of the public would make a free highway 
for all the children of the state to travel on from the 
kindergarten to the highest education American insti- 
tutions can give. 

Horace Mann died gloriously because he had lived 
to win many a victory for humanity. I can wish you 
no higher good than that his story may interpret our 
text and that the text may become a guiding inspira- 
tion to the end of life. 



THE GAME OF LIFE 



10 VICTIS 

I sing the hymn of the conquered, who fell in the Battle of Life, — 
The hymn of the wounded, the beaten, who died overwhelmed in the 
strife ; 

Not the jubilant song of the victors, for whom the resounding 
acclaim 

Of nations was lifted in chorus, whose brows wore the chaplet of 
fame, 

But the hymn of the low and the humble, the weary, the broken in 
heart, 

Who strove and who failed, acting bravely a silent and desperate 
part ; 

Whose youth bore no flower on its branches, whose hopes burned in 
ashes away. 

From whose hand slipped the prise they had grasped at, who stood 

at the dying of day 
With the wreck of their lives all around them, unpitied, unheeded, 

alone. 

With Death swooping down o'er their failure, and all but their 
faith overthrown. 

While the voice of the world shouts its chorus, — its paean for those 
who have won; 

While the trumpet is sounding triumphant, and high to the breeze 
and the sun 

Glad banners are waving, hands clapping, and hurrying feet 
Thronging after the laurel-crowned victors, I stand on the Held 
of defeat, 

In the shadow, with those who have fallen, and wounded, and dying, 
and there 

Chant a requiem low, place my hand on their pain-knotted brows, 
breathe a prayer. 

Hold the hand that is helpless, and whisper, "They only the victory 
win, 

Who have fought the good fight, and have vanquished the demon 

that te^npts us withifi; 
Who have held to their faith unseduced by the prise that the 

world holds on high; 
Who have dared for a high cause to suffer, resist, tight, — if need be, 

to die." 

Speak, History! who are life's victors? Unroll thy long annals 
and say. 

Are they those whom the world called the victors — who won the 

success of a day? 
The Martyrs, or Nero? The Spartans, who fell at Thermopylae's 

tryst. 

Or the Persians and Xerxes? His judges or Socrates? Pilate or 
Christ? 

—William Wetmore Story 



XIV 



THE GAME OF LIFE 

Not failure hut low aim is crime. — James Russell Lowell 

To the imagination of the young, life presents 
itself as a game, a happy contest, a competitive strug- 
gle to win a prize. Paul compares life to a foot-race 
such as was witnessed in the Olympic contests of 
Greece, where the runners, stripped of all incum- 
brances, strained every nerve in the great race for 
which they had spent months in training and in which 
they hoped to win national renown. So important 
seemed these contests, and so severe was the train- 
ing required, that they came but once in four years, 
thus marking the length of the Greek Olympiad. In 
common speech, the words of familiar games are 
unconsciously used to describe life and its experiences. 
The technical terms of sport have become the slang 
terms of social life; men talk about politicians hav- 
ing their "innings," of men being made to "knuckle 
down" in business, of the successful man as "holding 
a full hand," of the cheated man as having been 
"euchered," of a baffled man as being "checkmated," 
and of a sudden defeat as a "knockout." 

In accordance with this unconscious habit of the 
mind, James Russell Lowell, in the poem entitled "An 
Autograph," compares life to a game in archery. We 
are all sportsmen shooting at a mark. Our arrow 

259 



26o 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



may not reach the target, but our target should be a 
worthy one, and we should aim high enough to reach 
it. "Not failure but low aim is crime." 

Whether on the playground or in life, whether in 
the short hours of a vacation or the long years of a 
life time, the aim is for success. We struggle to win. 
We strain every ner\^e, and use all our wits and 
strength in order to succeed. This is as it should be. 
Life is a struggle. It is given us as an opportunity, 
and the boy or girl is only half aUve that is not stirred 
with an ambition to achieve, to "hit the mark," to 
accomplish something in life as on the playground. 

But, we must learn early that there are not prizes 
for all the runners. All cannot win the game. Often 
in life as in checkers, the success of one means the 
defeat of another. Of a hundred runners there is but 
one to come out ahead. Many may aim at the mark, but 
few arrows will strike the bull's-eye in the target. 
The slightest defect in the arrow will defeat the clear- 
est eye and the steadiest hand. The arrow-head may 
be a little unbalanced, the shaft a little bent, the 
feather tip a little imperfect, or, even if the arrow be 
perfect and the bow well strung, an unexpected whiff 
of wind or a sudden glint of sunlight just at the critical 
moment, may send the arrow a fraction off the line 
that means success. Or, even if arrow and bow and 
sun and breeze be right, there may be a twinge of the 
nerve, a defect of the muscle, a weakness of eye for 
which the archer was not responsible, and he misses 
the mark, the crown is not his. The twitching nerve 



THE GAME OF LIFE 



261 



may have been a bequest from his grandfather, the 
blinking eye may have come from his grandmother; 
the weakened muscle may have been caused by 
malaria or typhoid, the bacteria of scarlet fever or 
diphtheria, which the archer could not have avoided 
and for which he must not be held responsible, but 
defeat is his, notwithstanding. 

The first lesson, then, of our Lowell motto, is that 
failure is not necessarily a crime. Failure may be no 
disgrace, indeed failure in one sense or another is the 
lot of all. Failure may be honorable. Failure is 
oftentimes complimentary. Failure is always rela- 
tive. Oftentimes what man calls failure God calls 
success. The defeat of today may bargain for the 
success of tomorrow. Of this game of life, Brown- 
ing, using the archery figure also, has told us. 

Better fail in the high aim than vulgarly succeed in the low 
aim. 

Indeed we have learned in our studies how beauti- 
ful failure may be, how grand often have been the 
successes of the defeated men and women of the 
world. Zoroaster and Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, 
and Jesus were all "failures," judged by the stand- 
ards of the world. Zoroaster probably became an 
outcast, the truth he tried to teach was rejected, and 
the little band of Parsis were compelled to move away 
from their native land into the northwestern corner of 
Asia. And when the near defeat seemed about to 
grow into success, and the new religion was 
advancing westward at the head of a great army, it 



262 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



met defeat at the hands of the Greeks and latterly at 
the hands of the Mohammedans in spite of its great 
truth. And today the followers of Zoroaster com- 
prise but a little handful, most of them constituting 
a little colony of two hundred thousand souls in far- 
off Bombay. 

The beautiful prince Siddartha, though he left the 
palace and gave up a throne in order that he might 
be a helper, becoming a mendicant that he might 
become a teacher, was so much a failure that all his 
followers were driven out of their own land within 
two or three hundred years after his death, and the 
prophet-prince of India, the gentle teacher who 
taught his people to be pitiful, has but few followers 
in his native India today, for it is in China and Japan 
and Ceylon and Siam that most of the four hundred 
and seventy million souls live that call Buddha 
blessed. Socrates was forced to drink the poison. 
Jesus was crucified. Giordano Bruno and Servetus 
were burned. These are only a few of the illustra- 
tions that might be given to show how glorious some 
kinds of failure are, how splendid it may be to be 
beaten in the game of life. 

But I do not want you to think that no failures are 
honorable except the famous failures. The world has 
been blessed with little neighborhood Zoroasters, local 
Buddhas, village Pauls, men who have preferred to 
aim high and fail rather than aim low and succeed; 
who have tried to do the right, and in trying have 
seemed to do little or nothing; who have preferred 



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263 



being noble to being popular, preferred being gener- 
ously poor to being selfishly rich, preferred the right 
to success. 

On the other hand. I might remind you of suc- 
cesses that have been sad, of triumphs that have been 
pitiable. ^larcus Aurelius was a noble pagan em- 
peror. On the Capitoline Hill in Rome, one of the 
most ancient bronze statues in the world represents 
him on a splendid horse, with right arm mercifully 
extended as if to protect his prisoners of war from 
the insults of his own legions. While he was ruling 
so benignly he wrote down some of his high thoughts. 
His book has since been called The Meditations of 
Marcus Aurelius. In this book there is evidence that 
he thought a great deal about the different kinds of 
successes possible to man. the successes that are disap- 
pointing as well as the successes that are glorious. 
In this book we read : 

A spider is proud when it has caught a poor fly, and some- 
one else when he has caught a poor hare,, and another when 
he has taken a little fish in a net, and another when he has 
taken wild boars, and another when he has taken bears, and 
another when he has taken the Sarmatians. Are not these rob- 
bers, if thou examinest their principles? 

Oh. how shameful are the spider successes among 
men. Even boys, in these days, if they are thought- 
ful, pause before they wantonly draw the shining fish 
out of his watery home to gasp for life and perish 
painfully in the sunlight. But what about the able- 
bodied men who in the game of life ruthlessly catch 



264 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



the little fishes in their net, sell out their own con- 
sciences, and trample upon the right in order to suc- 
ceed. 

All success is not dishonorable, but many successes 
are pitiable failures. After election day, when the 
votes are counted, those who have been elected 
through the purchasing power of money or favor, or 
who have sought and obtained office for the purpose 
of trafficking in the people's rights and advancing 
their own interests, have been miserably defeated, for 
they have bargained for dishonor ; they succeeded into 
ignominy, they triumphed into shame and disgrace, 
while those who were defeated because they were 
independent of money and favor, because they sought 
only to serve their city, to elevate and ennoble their 
state, they in their defeat will have nobly succeeded. 

Andrew Marvell, scholar, poet, and patriot, was 
in the English Parliament when the wicked Charles 
II was on the throne. The reckless king needed a 
great deal of money, and he tried to secure it by brib- 
ing the members of Parliament. The lord treasurer 
at the king's instigation called upon Marvell, who was 
then living in a garret, and, after a friendly visit, 
placed a check for a thousand pounds in his hands. 
"Come back, my lord," exclaimed the haughty com- 
moner. He then called his servant boy and said to 
him, 

"Jack, what had I for dinner yesterday?" 
"A shoulder of mutton, sir, that you ordered me 
to bring from a woman in the market." 



I 

' THE GAME OF LIFE 265 

"Jack, what have I for dinner today?" 

"You told me, sir, to lay by the blade-bone to boil 
for soup today." 

"My lord," said Marvell, turning to the lord 
treasurer, "you see that my dinner is provided for. 
Take back your paper." 

A biographer tells us that Sir Robert Walpole 
once sent a famous minister to hire the poor poet 
Goldsmith to write a political screed that should help 
defeat the lovers of freedom by heaping ridicule upon 
them. The poor poet — and ah, how poor Goldsmith 
was — scorned the offer, saying he "preferred to write 
the tale of 'Goody Two Shoes' for the amusement of 
children than become the hack pamphleteer of politi- 
cal prostitutes." 

No, failure is not necessarily crime, and success is 
not necessarily a virtue. Columbus went in search of 
India. He found only a few little islands, but there 
was the American continent farther on, of which he 
had not even dreamed. The prince Siddartha wanted 
to bring happiness to his people, to relieve them from 
the woes of life. In trying to do this he made the 
world more kind and taught gentleness and pity to 
humanity. Jesus sent his disciples out to seek the 
"lost sheep of Israel." In so doing he sent a message 
that has encircled the earth, and his beatitudes and 
the parable of the good Samaritan are now taught in 
every language. 

If, then, the low aim is crime, what should the aim 

be? 



266 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



Shall we say happiness? Certainly the world 
should be happy. The earth is tremulous every 
springtime with Easter beauty and joy. The boughs 
dance with happiness. The birds chant their happy 
songs. In the country the lambs gambol and the 
cows stand knee deep in fragrant clover. God must 
have meant this for a happy world, but happiness is a 
poor thing to go in search of, for in seeking our own 
happiness we often make others miserable. Kings 
seek for happiness when they oppress their subjects. 
Warriors seek for happiness when they destroy their 
foes and fill the land with widows and orphan:-'. We 
must aim higher than happiness. 

Shall it be usefulness, shall we try to be of service 
to our kind? Yes, but who can tell what is useful- 
ness? Sometimes in trying to serve we hurt. Some- 
times mothers are unkind in their great desire to help 
their children. Fathers are cruel to their sons and 
daughters by shielding them from the struggle and 
the toil, the responsibility and the discipline through 
which they themselves have passed. We may not be 
able to tell what is useful. Let us aim higher. 

Shall it be truth? Certainly we must ever remem- 
ber that the truth alone can make us free. How 
splendid it is to give our lives in a quest for truth, to 
brave the wilds of Africa in search of the head waters 
of the Nile, as Livingstone did; to lose one's self in 
the desolate fields of snow in polar realms in search 
of a North Pole, as Nansen did; to steal away from 
friends, from country, from native land, and spend 



THE GAME OF LIFE 



267 



years in far-away India, as Anquetil du Perron, the 
young French student did, in search of a lost Bible, 
in the study of a dead language, and to bring back, 
as he did, the Zend-Avesta, the Bible of the Parsis; 
to prefer study to wealth Hke Faraday, and thus be 
able to create a new science and to discover so many 
of the marvels of chemistry. Think of Galileo's joy 
as he looked through his newly made telescope. 
Think of the delights of Edison in the electric light 
and the phonograph. Yes, it is great to aim at truth. 
But Pilate asked Jesus at his trial, ''What is truth?" 
and Jesus did not answer. We may not know it 
when we discover it; we may not even know in what 
direction to go in search of it. Let us try again for 
a higher aim. 

Shall it be honesty? We can at least be true to 
ourselves. We can at least think what we say and say 
what we think in this world. We can at least aim at 
honesty, and in that we may do what will bring use- 
fulness and happiness to others if not to ourselves. 
They used to say, "There is no God west of the Mis- 
sissippi," meaning by that that on the border of civili- 
zation and beyond it there was no honesty. But now 
we know that there is a God beyond the Mississippi 
and beyond the outermost reach of civilization, a God 
that reveals himself where dishonest folk are proving 
any aim below honesty to be a crime which the world 
will at last discover and despise. No matter whether 
your business in life is selling sugar or preaching the 
gospel, whether you are a tailor or a philosopher, a 



268 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



cook or an artist, you can and must be honest in the 
office, at the home, on the farm, in the church, or you 
are aiming low. Tell the truth as you see it; be loyal 
to your own best nature, follow the little light you 
have, and it will lead evermore to nobler light. 

There is a great story told of a German peasant 
during the war of 1760. A captain of cavalry drag- 
ged the poor old man from his cabin and said, "Take 
us to a field where we can find forage for our horses." 
"Very well," said the old man, and he led them through 
a little valley until they came to a fine field of barley, 
and the captain said, "This will do." But the old man 
said, "Not this, please sir. Come a little farther on, 
and I will show you another field." They followed, 
and the troops dismounted and began to mow the 
growing grain and bind it in sheaves for their horses. 
"But," said the captain, "why did you lead us here? 
The other field was just as good." "Yes," said the 
peasant, "but that is not mine." Let there be the 
same honesty in regard to the barley fields of thought, 
the corn fields of mind. Another's thought is not 
yours to give. Deal in your own. Be honest. 

Is honesty, then, the highest mark to aim at ? No, 
not the highest. Honesty deals with yourself, but 
there is a higher word that represents your relation to 
your kind, and that word is justice. Usefulness, 
truth, honesty, all are servants of this greatest of 
words and noblest of things. All the virtues and all 
the graces wait upon justice. Justice is of God, 
whose name is Equity, whose spirit is fair- 



THE GAME OF LIFE 



269 



ness. Justice is love at work. Justice is ap- 
plied truth. Justice is corporate honesty. Hon- 
esty may make the hermit; justice makes the 
citizen. Honesty may make a partisan and a patriot; 
justice makes a cosmopolitan, a citizen of the world, 
a humanitarian, a loyal member of humanity. 

This is the aim. How shall we pursue it in such 
a way that, however we may fail, there can be no 
crime in it? I am not much of a marksman. But did 
you ever think why it is that he who would hit the 
mark shuts one eye? Is it not to shut out all but 
the rays that come straight from the mark and 
return straight to the mark? He who would take 
true aim must beware of double vision. Jesus talks 
about the ''single eye" and Paul about "singleness of 
heart." They must have meant the straight vision, 
the one purpose, a loyalty to the all-sufficient aim. 
There is an old saying, "He who follows two hares 
is sure to catch neither." A wag once advertised that 
for twenty-five cents he would tell how to prevent any 
shot-gun from scattering, and when he received his 
quarter he was wont to reply, "Dear Sir: To keep 
your gun from scattering, put in a single shot at a 
time." Englishmen say, "The Yankee sailor can 
splice a rope in a dozen ways; an English sailor has 
only one way of splicing a rope, but that is the best 
way." 

Boys, if you would be just, you must be clean, 
pure, noble. Whoever vitiates the pure air with 
tobacco fumes, whoever mars his face with drink or 



270 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



fouls his speech with coarseness is so far unjust to his 
kind, unjust to the world, unjust to God. And the 
girl that mars simplicity with frivolity, economy with 
spendthrift habits, is cruel and unjust to herself and 
others, blighting and marring the lives she ought to 
beautify. 

Does this seem a hard message to the young? 
Ought I not in these spring days to speak a message 
of love and of beauty rather than of stern justice? 
But, my children, justice is stern only to the wrong- 
doer. To the pure and good, justice is love, is enthu- 
siasm, is helpfulness, is joy. Men talk of "cold jus- 
ice," and ''hard justice." There is no such thing, 
for either of these is injustice. In The Corning Peo- 
ple, by Charles F. Dole, I find the following motto : 
''Show us whatever is good for mankind, and we will 
try to bring it about. Tell us whatever means will 
bring good, and we are pledged to use them." This 
is an aim high enough to enlist all the energies of 
love, and this is simple justice. 

Thus runs an old story: There were three roses 
in a florist's window, each "weighed down with love- 
liness as with a crown." One of these roses was 
bought by a lover for his sweetheart's breast, another 
by a widow to place in the icy hand of her dead child, 
and the third went to decorate the hair of a wanton 
woman. Edwin Arnold, in his poem "The Three 
Roses," discusses the question which of these roses 
fulfilled the highest mission. And in the thought of 
the past, not the rose that strengthened the lovers' 



THE GAME OF LIFE 



271 



ties was most blessed, nor yet the rose that threw a 
light upon the coffin lid, but rather the one that gave 
back to the wayward woman the memory of the long 
ago when in innocence she plucked the clean spring 
roses, the flower that brought the sense of shame and 
the prayer of repentance, the flower that led the 
wayward soul to exclaim, 

O Christ! I am thy wilted rose, 
Renew me ! Thou renewest those ! 

And the angels gathered at that cry ''to help this 
soul that strove aright." The last rose was the rose 
of greatest love because it was the rose of justice. 
For only the loving are just, and only those who pur- 
sue justice pursue an aim that ever lifts the pursuers 
above crime, however disappointed, however de- 
feated, however, they may fail. 

So after all, my motto is a motto of cheer, and 
my message is a message of joy. These days of the 
returning sun call for a new interpretation of a sun- 
beam. It is the life giver. Let Lucy Larcom give 
the closing word, answering the question, ''What 
would you do if you were a sunbeam?" 

If I were a sunbeam, 

I know what I'd do : 
I would seek white lilies 

Rainy woodlands through ; 
I would steal among them, 

Softest light I'd shed, 
Until every lily 

Raised its drooping head. 



LOVE AOT LOYALTY 



If I were a sunbeam, 

I know where I'd go : 
Into the lowliest hovels, 

Dark with want and woe; 
Till sad hearts looked upward, 

I would shine and shine; 
Then they'd think of heaven, 

Their sweet home and mine. 

Art thou not a sunbeam, 

Child, whose life is glad, 
With an inner radiance 

Sunshine never had? 
Oh, as God has blessed thee. 

Scatter rays divine! 
For there is no sunbeam 

But must die, or shine. 



THE SOURCES OF POWER 



Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard? The everlast- 
ing God, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth 
not, neither is weary; there is no searching of his understanding. 

He giveth power to the faint; and to him that hath no 
might he increaseth strength. 

Even the youths shall faint and he weary, and the young 
men shall utterly fall. 

But they that wait for Jehovah shall renew their strength; 
they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and 
not he weary; they shall walk, and not faint. 

— Isaiah 40 : 28-31 



XV 



THE SOURCES OF POWER 

Not knowledge hut purpose is power. — Source unknown 

What one wants to know is of more value than 
what one does know, and what one wants to do is 
worth more than what one has done. The places 
you have not visited interest you more than the places 
you have seen. You who live in Chicago want to see 
Boston. The Boston children yearn for a sight of 
Chicago. Europeans spend long years in work and 
economy that they may visit America. Americans do 
the same thing that they may go to Europe. It is 
what we want, not what we have, that measures us. 

What I aspired to be, and was not, 

Comforts me, 

said Browning ; and in the same poem he said : 
All I could never be. 
All men ignored in me, 
That I was worth to God. 

You may have mastered the rules of arithmetic; 
you may have learned to read in several languages 
and to recite many poems; you may have seen many 
wonderful sights, heard many eminent men and 
women, and be very ''smart," as school children say, 
and yet be peevish when children, petulant when men 
and women ; yes, in spite of all this knowledge you 
may be uninteresting, ungracious, and weak. There are 

275 



276 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



many graduates of high schools without friends and 
without influence. Every week I meet young men and 
women who have gone through college, yet have not 
power enough to earn a living, and cannot find a place 
in the world ; while, on the other hand, Abraham Lin- 
coln without school, without library, without money, 
and at one time without friends, climbed to be the 
noblest American. And a poor boy whose father 
was a stone mason and whose mother was a profes- 
sional nurse, grew to be the great and noble Socrates. 

But it will not do to make too easy a lesson from 
so great a text. You must not accept it too readily. 
It is true that knowledge without purpose is of but 
little avail ; that no m.atter how many rules we master, 
how many books we read, how many accomplish- 
ments we acquire, or how many places we may visit, 
we are weak without a purpose, and our acquirement 
is of little use to us unless we have a commanding 
motive. 

But it is also equally true that a purpose without 
knowledge oftentimes brings weakness and defeat. 
When Sir George Stevenson appeared before the 
committee of the House of Commons to urge the 
passage of an act permitting the construction of a 
railroad from Liverpool to Manchester, the commit- 
tee cross-questioned him for three days. One of the 
wise men said to him, ''If a cow was to get on the 
track of the engine and it was traveling at the rate of 
ten miles an hour, would it not be an awkward situa- 
tion?" 



THE SOURCES OF POWER 



277 



"Yea — very awkward indeed for the coo," replied 
the young engineer. And, like Stevenson's "coo," 
thousands of people are constantly putting themselves 
into awkward situations simply for want of knowl- 
edge. 

No high purpose can save a fool who persists in 
his folly from the consequences of his foolishness. 
No high purpose will enable one to play the piano 
successfully without practice, to survey a hill without 
a knowledge of mathematics, or to make a successful 
garden without a knowledge of seeds and soils. 

Two great English engineers to whom Steven- 
son's railroad project was referred gave it as their 
opinion that the only way steam could be made to 
draw railway cars was by establishing stationary 
engines perhaps one and a half miles apart, to pull 
the cars from one station to another with ropes and 
pulleys. Their purpose was good, but their knowl- 
edge was defective. 

If it is true that there must be a purpose before 
knowledge becomes a power, it is also true that pur- 
pose must find knowledge before it can become 
powerful. 

Perhaps the best way for us to find our sermon 
is to try to answer these three questions : ( i ) What 
is knowledge? (2) What is purpose? (3) What is 
power ? 

What is knowledge? It certainly is not an 
acquaintance with mere facts. It is not familiarity 
with names. Knowledge does not come from the die- 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



tionary or the encyclopaedia. You may know the 
multipHcation table, the Ten Commandments, the 
Declaration of Independence, and the Golden Rule, 
without knowing mathematics, morals, patriotism, or 
religion. To know the names or even the color and 
forms, of all birds in your neighborhood will not 
make an ornithologist of you; to know all the stones 
in the cabinet by their scientific names will not make a 
geologist of you. To know all the notes in the gamut, 
or even to be able to read them in their combination 
on the musical staff, will not make a musician of you. 

To know the bird you must know its relation to 
other birds, its habit throughout the year, what it 
feeds upon, where it nests, and where it spends its 
winter. You must know the bird in its relations. 
To know geology, you must know something of the 
formation of the strata^ their place in the history of 
the world, how long they were forming, and their 
connection with the strata below and the strata above. 
To know morals, you must know the Ten Command- 
ments in their relation to life, how they apply to 
conduct on the playground, in the school, in the home, 
in business. Knowledge is ordered information. 
Bread and milk is not strength. It becomes strength 
only when digested. So the facts of life are only the 
materials out of which knowledge is made. Knowl- 
edge is always the combination of the fact and the 
thought. The more facts and thinking combine, the 
more knowledge. 

What is knowledge, then? It is not memory. 



THE SOURCES OF POWER 



279 



It is not familiarity with facts. It is not 
observation. It is not even experience. It is 
all these put to soak in the human mind. It is all these 
digested by the human brain. Knowledge is memory 
changed to convictions, familiarity transformed into 
ideas. The bird has much keener sight than man. 
The dog can smell more acutely. I notice that my 
good horse Roos will hear a man beating a carpet on 
a side street when I hear nothing. But you know 
more than the bird; boys have more knowledge than 
the dog; and I hope I have more sense, take it all 
around, than my horse. At least I am not afraid of 
a carpet-beater, as she is. 

Men put wheat into the hopper, and it comes out 
flour. Women bake the flour, and it becomes bread. 
Children eat the bread, and it becomes bodily strength. 
So we put facts into the thought hoppers of boys and 
girls. These facts are ground in the think-mill of 
life, and they come out as knowledge, ideas which can 
be baked into the bread of wisdom. This alone is the 
stuff out of which comes strength, purpose, and 
power. 

Now to our second question: What is purpose? 
It certainly is not mere impulse, it is surely more than 
ambition, it is more than desire. The baby wants the 
candle to play with. It reaches out for the moon. It 
does not know that the moon is beyond its reach. It 
has not yet learned to judge of distances. The boy 
who in his anger vows to revenge himself upon his 
playmate, the girl who thinks she is passionately fond 



28o 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



of music and wishes she could study in Paris, are both 
wanting in purpose unless they are willing to move on 
long lines and make these vows and passions delib- 
erate. 

Purpose is at least a thing of silent if not of slow 
growth. There is an element of justice in it. It is 
pressure towards a goal not reached, and the farther 
away the goal, generally the higher the purpose. The 
purpose of the boy or girl, if it is to become power- 
ful, must take counsel of the power of God by being 
persistent. Patience is the secret of genius. Patience 
brings the crown to the real conquerors. Patience will 
surely bring us, if not what we work for, then some- 
thing better. Persistency is always one element of 
the great man. That is a good old story of Demos- 
thenes, the greatest orator of antiquity, who stam- 
mered so that he was hissed from off the stage when 
he made his first speech. But he filled his mouth 
with pebbles and talked in the face of the storm as it 
beat the ocean into noisy tumult, and so cured him- 
self of stammering and acquired the power of sway- 
ing multitudes. 

Purpose before it becomes power must make com- 
mon cause with knowledge; nay, more, it must make 
common cause with the universe. You can not find 
that out about things which is not in things. No 
purpose can get maple sugar out of a basswood tree. 
No purpose, however diligently pursued, can success- 
fully raise peaches in Alaska or reindeer in Cuba. No 
amount of purpose can make water run up hill, 



THE SOURCES OF POWER 



281 



neither can it make truth out of falsehood, right out 
of wrong-, or happiness out of cruelty. The purpose 
that lands in power must be a purpose planted, not in 
the changing law of man, but in the eternal law of 
God. There is no luck. It is all order. There is no 
chance. It is all law. 

Next to patience must come concentration, another 
element in a masterful purpose. There is force 
enough in the boiling tea-kettle to run a dynamo, but 
without the aid of the steam engine it is dissipated 
and lost. There must be a cylinder to confine the steam 
until it is strong enough to move the piston that turns 
the wheel that pulls the train. 

A Boston manufacturer said to a young inventor 
who had been puzzling his brains over a knitting 
machine, "Why don't you make a sewing-machine?" 
"It cannot be done," said the inventor. A clumsy 
workman in the shop overheard the remark. It was a 
new thought. It aroused a new purpose, and Elias 
Howe began to brood over it. Years and years he 
wrestled with the idea, supporting himself and three 
children on nine dollars a week. The merry boy 
became a brooding man. Model after model he built 
and broke, until at last, in 1845, he stitched himself 
a suit of clothes with his ov/n machine. His purpose 
had become not only a power to him but to all the 
world. Millions of sewing machines now relieve the 
hand of man, and every one of them rests on Elias 
Howe's invention. 

Prescott and Parkman, two of the most eminent 



282 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



historians of the United States, achieved their work 
under the greatest of difficulties. Prescott was bhnd 
in one eye, and Parkman so nearly blind in both eyes 
that he could use them not more than five minutes at 
a time, yet both made rich contributions to American 
history, a work which necessitated the mastery of 
many books and the deciphering of thousands of per- 
plexing documents. Linnaeus, one of the early botan- 
ists, was so poor that he had to beg his meals. David 
Livingstone, the great African traveler, began work 
in a cotton factory at ten years of age. Out of 
his earliest wages he bought a Latin grammar and 
studied it in the night schools. Frederick Douglass, 
in a speech to some colored children, once said : 

I once knew a little colored boy whose mother and father 
died when he was but six years old. He was a slave, and had 
no one to care for him. He slept on a dirt floor in a hovel, 
and in cold weather would crawl into a meal-bag head fore- 
most, and leave his feet in the ashes to keep them warm. Often 
he would roast an ear of corn and eat it to satisfy his hunger, 
and many times has he crawled under the barn or stable and 
secured eggs, which he would roast in the fire and eat. That 
boy did not wear pantaloons, as you do, but a tow-linen shirt. 
Schools were unknown to him, and he learned to spell from an 
old Webster's spelling-book, and to read and write from posters 
on cellar and barn doors, while boys and men would help him. 
He would then preach and speak, and soon became well known. 
He became presidential elector. United States marshal, United 
States recorder, United States diplomat, and accumulated some 
wealth. He wore broadcloth, and didn't have to divide crumbs 
with the dogs under the table. That boy was Frederick Doug- 
lass. What was possible for me is possible for you. Don't think 



THE SOURCES OF POWER 



283 



because yon are colored you can't accomplish anything. Strive 
earnestly to add to your knowledge. So long as you remain in 
ignorance, so long will you fail to command the respect of your 
fellow-men. 

Now to our third point: What is power? Power 
is that which enables man to co-operate with God. 
Power is a noble word because it enables us to achieve 
noble things, and, above all, to be noble. The illus- 
trations of power make the study of science delight- 
ful, the reading of history valuable, poetry and fic- 
tion helpful. This is why biography is such a valu- 
able source of inspiration to children, aye, to children 
of all ages. The mathematician figures out the path 
of the stars and says to the man at the telescope, 
*'There is another star hidden out there in yonder 
section of space — look for it." And he looks and 
finds it. This is the power that comes to the man 
who works along the lines of God, the man who, in 
good Bible phrase, "enters into the secrets of the 
Almighty." 

I like the story of Caleb West, Master Diver, writ- 
ten by F. Hopkinson Smith. In this book is described 
the hard, brave life of the builders and sailors who 
construct lighthouses along shore and carry on the 
dangerous traffic with seaport towns of the Atlantic 
coast. "Captain Joe" and his men were raising on 
the edge of the sea ledge four great derricks with 
which to handle the tremendous blocks of granite 
that were to be laid in the walls of the lighthouse, walls 
that must stand the tempest for centuries and hold 



284 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



aloft the beacon that would save life and property 
for generations to come. These derricks must be 
high enough to carry the stones to the top of the new 
lighthouse, fifty-eight feet above the water line. 
Three of the mighty derricks were already up. On a 
damp, foggy, windy day in August, the fourth was 
going up. The steady "Heave, Ho! Heave, Ho!'* 
of the man tugging at the tackle line brought the 
fourth a little nearer and nearer to the position where 
the chain could be fastened in the hook, making all 
four derricks safe. The men were standing ankle 
deep in water and the tide was rising, when suddenly 
one of the men slipped and tripped the one next to 
him, who also fell, and soon the whole line was 
floundering among the rocks. 

The big fourth derrick swung like a tree that was 
doomed, and all four were in momentary danger of 
falling and crushing the men. 

"Every man o' ye as ye were," shouted Captain 
Joe. One guy rope had held, but at last it seemed to 
give way. 

"Stand by on that watch tackle, every man o' ye. 
Don't one o' ye move." And not one of them did 
move, but all stood by. But another jerk, another 
break, and Captain Joe shouted, 

"Down between the rocks. Heads under, every 
one o' ye." This command was as promptly obeyed 
as the others, and no man had been hurt though all 
the derricks came tumbling down. The tide was 
rising. No time was to be lost. 



THE SOURCES OF POWER 



285 



"All hands to the derricks again. We have got 
to get them up, boys, if it takes all night." Again the 
men sprang to their tasks. For five consecutive hours 
they worked without pause. One after another the 
derricks rose again and the guy ropes were once more 
fastened. 

It was now six o'clock at night. The four der- 
ricks were again almost erect. The same gang was 
tugging at the watch tackle. The distance between 
the hook and the ring was now reduced to five feet, 
and again it was, "Heave, Ho! Heave, Ho!" until 
inch by inch the distance was lessened. But the tide 
had now risen until the men were standing three feet 
deep in the water, and the wind was blowing so that 
the boat, the only means of leaving the ledge upon 
which they were working, broke from its moorings 
and was in danger of being beaten to pieces upon the 
rocks. But no man could leave his rope to save the 
little boat. The waves were rolling higher and 
higher. Captain Joe held the hook. Then he cal- 
culated how long it would be before the water would 
be above their heads and the wind would crush the 
boat, but he flinched not and cheerily cried, 

"Heave, Ho! Heave, Ho!" and the ring was 
within two feet of the hook. Captain Joe was now 
waist deep in the sea. 

"Hold fast, men! Hold fast, men!" came a cry 
from the shore, as a great curler rolled headlong over 
the ledge wetting the men to their armpits, and the 
wave rolled completely over the head of Captain Joe. 



286 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



But he rose to his task, shook the water from his 
mouth and cried, 

"Heave, Ho! men!" 

It was a fight between the rising sea and the men 
at the tackle. One inch more, another inch, and still 
another. It was now within six inches of the hook, but 
the water was up to Captain Joe's shoulders. "Give 
it to her, men! All hands now! Pull, men! Once 
more — altogether! Heave Ho! All to — " and again 
the sea buried him out of sight before the cry was out 
of his lips. The m.an on the shore said, "The boat is 
pounding itself to pieces." 

"Let her pound," replied Captain Joe. "Heave, 
Ho! men! Pull ye — ." Another wave went over 
him. He rose now with no breath to be wasted in cry- 
ing. Every man knew the crisis had arrived. One 
more pull. 

"One— 

"One— 

"Two-- 

"Hold hard! Hold hard!" 

All eyes were fixed on the captain, every man 
held his breath. 

"Let Go! Let Go!" and the big derrick quiv- 
ered for an instant and then steadied on its feet. 

The Hook Had Slipped into the Ring. The 
guys were all taut, the mighty suspension bridge under 
which the life-saving lighthouse would rise, was firm 
After twelve hours of battling with the sea the men 



THE SOURCES OF POWDER 287 



scrambled onto the little ledge, and the cheery voice 
of Captain Joe cried, 

''All ye men what is going in the 'Screamer' look 
to the life-boat. Pick up your tackles. It will be 
awful soapy around here 'fore morning.'' 

This is the power of a man who was tempered by 
the sea, who had studied the tides, wdiose will and 
mind and heart beat together. This is a power that 
in fighting with nature becomes strong with the 
strength of nature. Captain Joe represents the kind 
of purpose you must have if you are to win in life's 
battle. You must learn of the elements how to fight 
them, for once you conquer them, they will evermore 
be your friends. 

I like again the story of the English fireman 
who, seeing five men on the top of a burning building 
beyond the reach of the tallest ladder, carried up a 
short ladder to form an extension, but it was too short 
to reach the men whose lives were in danger. Stand- 
ing on the top of the lower ladder, gradually he lifted 
the short one from knee to hip, from hip to shoulder, 
and braced himself against the building, while the men 
above reached down and descended to life and safety 
on the ladder of which the height of the fireman's 
own body was the necessary extension. 

But not all power is allied to muscle or is found 
in battling with the outer forces of nature. I find 
another story which suits my purpose in A\'estcott's 
David Harum. On Christmas morning, the rough but 
kind-hearted country banker prepared to lift the mort- 



388 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



gage from the house of a poor widow. He told her the 
story how, forty years before, a young man who sub- 
sequently became the husband of this woman, took 
him, a barefooted, shockheaded, bashful country lad 
to a circus and gave him ten cents to buy anything he 
liked. That ten cents was the capital with which 
David Harum started out in life. He had computed 
the interest through forty years, and was now ready 
to pay it back by paying the thousand-dollar mort- 
gage upon the home of the widow of the man who 
took him to the show. The kind-hearted young man 
had disappeared. David never saw him again, and 
all through life he was haunted by the fear that he 
had not said ''Thank you," and that his benefactor 
had never known how gi^eat a kindness he had 
bestowed upon the homeless boy. He said to the 
dazed widow: 

I never had a kind word said to me, nor a day's fun. 
Your husband, Billy P. Cullom, was the fust man that ever 
treated me human up to that time. He gave me the only 
enjoy'ble time 't I'd ever had, an' I don't know't anythin's ever 
equaled it since. He spent money on me, an' he give me money 
to spend — that had never had a cent to call my own — an', Mis' 
Cullom, he took me by the hand, an' he gin me the fust 
notion't I'd ever had that mebbe I wa'n't only the scum o' the 
earth, as I'd ben teached to believe. I tell ye that day was the 
turnin' point of my life. Wa'al, it wa'n't the lickin' I got, 
though that had somethin' to do with it, but I'd never have had 
the spunk to run away's I did if it hadn't ben for the heartenin' 
Billy P. gin me, an' never knowed it, an' never knowed it," he 
repeated, mournfully. "I alius allowed to pay some o' that 



THE SOURCES OF POWER 



289 



debt back to him, but seein' 's I can't do that, Mis' Cullom, I'm 
glad an' thankful to pay it to his widdo'." 

"Mebbe he knows, Dave," said Mrs. Cullom, softly. 

And David continued: 

"Wa'al, I thought that mebbe, long's you got the int'rist of 
that investment we ben talkin' about, you'd let me keep what's 
left of the princ'pal. Would ye like to see it?" 

Mrs. Cullom looked at him with a puzzled expression with- 
out replying. 

David took from his pocket a large wallet, secured by a 
strap, and, opening it, extracted something enveloped in much 
faded brown paper. Unfolding this, he displayed upon his 
broad fat palm an old silver dime black with age. 

There's the cap'tal," he said. 

There is that in the story Captain Joe that may 
stir the boys and girls more than the story of David 
Harum, but perhaps, after all, the spirit that caused 
the wealthy young gentleman to take notice of a 
shock-headed, barefooted, ragged boy, and "take him 
by the hand" while they studied together the elephant 
and the rhinoceros, was a finer, higher power than 
that which enabled Captain Joe to fight the waves and 
the men to stand by the tackle. Be that as it may, 
the power we need is the power which brings love, 
helpfulness, and holiness, and such power comes 
through knowledge and ripens in the wisdom that 
enters into the counsels of the Almighty. 



THE RHYME OF THINGS 



Perfect paired as eagle's wings, 
Justice is the rhyme of things; 
Trade and counting use 
The self -same tuneful muse; 
And Nemesis, 

Who with even matches odd. 
Who athwart space redresses 
The partial wrong, 
Fills the just period. 
And finishes the song. 

— From Emerson's "Merlin" 



XVI 



THE RHYME OF THINGS 

Justice is the rhyme of things. — Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Given the best blood of Puritan New England, 
an ancestry that reaches back through seven genera- 
tions of ministers of religion, close contact with 
nature and life, familiarity with the best of books, all 
the training of Harvard College, all the discipline 
necessitated by economy, thrift, and diligence, all 
that love of noble men and women and an interest 
in the rights of the poor and down-trodden could 
give, with that ^'something more" that comes, we 
know not how and we know not whence, that heaven- 
born plus we call genius, and lo, Ralph Waldo Emer- 
son, who has given to you your motto and to me 
my text. 

The writings of Emerson are such as might be 
expected from such a source, wise and witty, clear 
and earnest, full of information, and sparkling with 
originality. He wrote out of his own heart to his 
own time and people, and yet he did this so well that 
his books are interesting anywhere, and true to all 
times. He was an American of the Americans, and 
yet he belonged to no country, no party, and no sect. 
Wherever he is known he is beloved. He is found in 
the libraries of the noble from Italy to Iceland, from 
San Francisco to Bombay. Russian and Frenchman, 

293 



294 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



Spaniard and Turk love Emerson. The gentle fol- 
lowers of Buddha, the wise children of Confucius, the 
little band of Parsis who revere as holy the word of 
Zoroaster, the Mohammedan who rides the Arabian 
desert on his camel, all are glad of Emerson. They 
love his words, they understand his message, because 
truth is true everywhere. Justice and love, like the 
multiplication table, belong to no country, because 
they belong to all countries. 

Of the twelve volumes of Ralph Waldo Emer- 
son's writings, as arranged in the final edition of his 
works, there is not one to spare, and I hope you will 
eventually learn to love them all. On Easter Day, at 
our recognition service, I shall hand to each of 
you his Conduct of Life. Here you will find the 
simple but difficult rules of the higher life, such as 
you can never know too early and can never study too 
long. You may need more schooling in this great 
university we call the "world" before you can under- 
stand the first essay, the one entitled "Fate," but I 
think you can already discover some of the gold in 
the essays on "Power," on "Wealth," on "Culture," 
on "Behavior," on "Worship" and on "Beauty." 
After these you will be ready for his other books con- 
taining the great essays on "Compensation," the 
"Over-Soul," and "Friendship;" his books entitled 
Representative Men, Society and Solitude, Letters and 
Social Aims, and the others. Through all this time 
you will, I hope, be learning to love the contents of 
the one volume of Emerson's poems ; indeed, you must 



THE RHYME OF THINGS 



295 



already have begun to study his thought-stirring and 
picture-making Hnes. I trust that no child can pass 
through the pubhc schools of this country without 
knowing something, aye, much, of Emerson's poetry, 
for it includes "The Mountain and the Squirrel," the 
"Titmouse," the "Rhodora," "Each and All," and the 
"Concord Hymn," which contains his perhaps most 
famous lines, 

Here once the embattled farmers stood, 
And fired the shot heard round the world. 

This volume includes, also, the poem entitled "Mer- 
lin," in which you have found your motto, 

Justice is the rhyme of things. 

The preachers are finding out that before they 
can interpret justly any Bible text, they must under- 
stand the context, must know something about the 
time, place, and purpose that gave the text being. 
So with our text from Emerson; we must know some- 
thing about the context. 

Merlin was the legendary father of Keltic poetry. 
Perhaps there was an original Merlin, an old British 
bard, living in the sixth century of the Christian era, 
who harped so delightfully, sang so wisely, prophe- 
sied so grandly, that after-ages surrounded him with 
a halo of myth, legend, and miracle. For twelve hun- 
dred years or more all the generations of Welsh boys 
and girls have held him half in terror and half in love. 
According to the legends, he had a demon for a 
father and a Welsh princess for a mother. From his 



296 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



earliest youth he had the power of conjuring up 
weird presences and of making himself invisible. He 
used to sail in a ship of glass, and, instead of dying, 
he fell into a magic sleep from which he is some day to 
awake and help his people back into freedom, power, 
and glory. He was reputed to have been the adviser 
of four great kings, indeed, according to some of the 
legends, he was the father of the noble and great 
King Arthur himself, who gathered about him the 
Knights of the Round Table, the leaders of an ideal 
democracy where freedom was the only badge of 
nobility and service the only condition of honor. 

You may have read the story of King Arthur and 
the achievements of his knights in Tennyson's beauti- 
ful Idyls of the King; or you may find it in the 
Mahinogion, as compiled by Lady Charlotte Guest 
and delightfully edited for boys by Sidney Lanier, 
the gentle poet of the South, whose name today lends 
beauty to Johns Hopkins University and fame to 
Baltimore. You will find many of the stories delight- 
fully told in William Henry Frost's book called Stories 
from the Land of the Round Table, and Professor 
John Rhys of Oxford has told the story critically in 
his book entitled the Arthurian Legend. But wher- 
ever you find them they all cluster around the name of 
Merlin — and this is only another way of saying that 
they all come out of poetry-land, that they are made 
of the same stuff as hopes and prophecies. Some will 
tell you they are "dreams." Very well, but such 
dreams are made of the most solid material in the 



THE RHYME OF THINGS 



297 



world. Marble palaces and stone monuments crum- 
ble, but the fancies of the human heart, the passions 
of men and women, the love of children for father 
and mother, the patriot's love for his country, these 
abide, because they are made of the solid stuff out 
of which the human soul is made and in which poetry 
deals. 

So when Emerson wanted to write a poem about 
poetry, to analyze its elements, to state its character- 
istics, and study its power, he naturally took Merlin 
as the representative poet. In the first part of the 
poem he tells us : 

The trivial harp will never please 

Or fill my craving ear ; 

Its chords should ring as blows the breeze. 

Free, peremptory, clear. 

No jingling serenader's art, 

Nor tinkle of piano strings. 

Can make the wild blood start 

In its mystic springs. 

The kingly bard 

Must smite the chords rudely and hard, 
As with hammer or with mace. 

He further intimates that poetry must not be tyran- 
nized over by mere form, that there is more than one 
way of writing it, that one must not be too exacting 
about style. Good poetry must 

Mount to Paradise 
By the stairway of surprise. 

After having thus discounted rhyme, he describes 



298 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



the power reached by the great poets because their 
words are 'like strokes of fate," strong 

With the pulse of manly hearts; 

With the voice of orators; 

With the din of city arts; 

With the cannonade of wars; 

With the marches of the brave; 

And prayers of might from martyrs' cave. 

Such poets, he says, belong to '']\Ierhn's mighty 
Hne." These are able to 

Bereave a tj-rant of his will, 
And make the lion mild. 
Songs can the tempest still 
Scattered on the stormy air, 
Mould the year to fair increase, 
And bring in poetic peace. 

Thus in the first part he discovers strength as an 
element of poetry, and he hastens to assure us, in the 
second part, that beauty also must belong to poetry; 
that poetry has use for melody, rhythm, and rh}ane. 
He says : 

The rhyme of the poet 

Modulates the king's affairs ; 

Balance-loving Nature 

Made all things in pairs. 

To every foot its antipode; 

Each color with its counter glowed; 

To every tone beat answering tones, 

Higher or graver; 

Flavor gladly blends with flavor; 

Leaf answers leaf upon the bough; 

And match the paired cotyledons. 



THE RH™E of things 



299 



But this rhythm must be the rhythm of nature, and 
the rhyme must be the rhyme of things, because 
nature goes in pairs, hfe is social, the universe is 
ordered, the stars are regular in their orbits, the sea- 
sons move with precision. 

Now we are ready to see the rhyme that belongs 
to great poetry. Not mere lilting syllables, not the 
tinkling melodies of a guitar, or the jinglings of a 
tamborine, but the far-reaching tones of the cornet, 
the searching voice of the flute, the soarings of the 
violin, accentuated, it may be, by the deep notes of the 
bassoon and the startling accents of the drum. All 
rhyme is not poetry, but all poetry has in it a rhythm 
of one kind or another. This is a distinction which 
grown-up folks oftentimes fail to recognize, and so 
I will illustrate. There is perfect rhyme and win- 
ning melody in this lilt of ''Staggerdodgy," but you 
will hardly think it poetry : 

In the bleck of Clything danders 
Some one sliffed some smole sorroy, 
Ankdecastory sminched with slanders, 
Clincht the girl and spole the boy. 

At the dradgeley dreeling droolers 
Diffit flipped a tazvish sponge; 
But the skernlet imingation 
Smeeled a spinge — to flinkly mimge. 

Soon a miffled grig befluzed hur, 
Said she zapped a morcus vase 
Until rawking wrikes confused her, 
When she spooched in bleep amaze. 



300 



LOVE AND^LOYALTY 



Drizzly, crilly, flippish ondrugs 
Vautch a richly raspoke Clythe; 
So the merry, rimpish vlee bugs 
Die primpsorply ere they writhe. 

But here is rhyme and poetry, nay, rhyme in 
poetry, because the beauty of the sound is wedded to 
the reahties of nature; music and fact blend in these 
stanzas from Shelley's "Cloud" : 

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers 

From the seas and the streams; 
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid 

In their noonday dreams. 
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken 

The sweet buds every one, 
When rocked to rest on their Mother's breast. 

As she dances about the sun. 
I wield the flail of the lashing hail, 

And whiten the green plains under; 
And then again I dissolve it in rain. 

And laugh as I pass in thunder. 

Now we begin to understand what Emerson means 
when he says, ''Justice is the rhyme of things." It is 
his way of saying that justice is the true relation of 
things — not the whim of human courts, but the law 
of the universe. Justice is not the enactment of legis- 
latures and congresses, but it is the law of God. 

The universal symbol of justice is the balance, the 
scales that show the perfect poise. The stars move in 
rhythm; they keep their orbit and move on their 
bended path. Justice so balances attraction and repul- 
sion, the centripetal and centrifugal forces of nature, 



THE RHYME OF THINGS 



301 



that they hold the planets in their paths and guide 
the comets in their wanderings. Could you destroy 
the balance, this earth of ours would go diving blindly 
into the sun or flying wildly into space, as the jus- 
tice was on the one side or the other. Were it possible 
to change the proportions of oxygen and hydrogen in 
our air i per cent., we should smother or burn, and 
confusion would reign where order now holds in per- 
fect poise the balance of vegetable and animal life. 

So in the moral world, justice is not only that 
which secures for us life and property, but it is that 
which brings love, joy, and peace. Are there any 
sick, any lonely, any discouraged ones in the world, 
you may be sure they are thus because they or some- 
body else has tampered with the rhyme of things. 
Hence instead of harmony we have discord, instead 
of co-operation we have antagonism, instead of poetry, 
which is truth, we have the hard contentions of error. 

Justice is balanced in the world of spirit as in the 
world of matter. Sooner or later, everything topples 
over that overreaches, that leans beyond its center of 
gravity. The leaning tower of Pisa used to be con- 
sidered one of the seven wonders of the world. It 
was supposed that it defied the law of gravitation, and 
was held in its place by a miracle, but careful surveys 
show that the architect who designed the quaint tower 
knew what he was about; he built it leaning, but he 
kept the center of gravity within the base, and the 
law of gravitation holds the tower in place. Had it 
by accident or intent been made to lean beyond the 



302 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



line established by gravitation, the leaning architec- 
ture would have fallen. Think of the great captains 
of war and industry, who in their ambition have for- 
gotten this line of justice; great as has been their 
superstructure, it has fallen over. 

In 1789 the humble French scientist Cuvier waited 
upon the great Bonaparte, presenting his report on the 
progress of natural science, and begging his fostering 
care. Napoleon was able to patronize him then, but now 
Napoleon's column has toppled over, while Cuvier's, 
like a noble pillar, stands firm and clear against the 
sky. In Napoleon's building plans there were lines 
of selfish ambition, reckless disregard of other lives, 
cruel destruction of other's property; he violated the 
"rhyme of things," and his column has fallen; while 
Cuvier built in truth and love according to the plumb- 
line of justice. 

A quaint old Jewish legend says that Balaam, the 
false prophet, was "blind in one eye." The legend is 
true, for all false things are "blind in one eye." They 
fail to realize that "justice is the rhyme of things;" 
they violate the balance, and they go wrong. They 
spoil the rhyme of justice, and over they go. 

Justice is particular about trifles. Up to 1840, 
the Bank of England found it very difficult to protect 
itself from the gold coins that, through wear and 
tear or through robbery, were of light weight. In 
that year a machine was invented for the detection of 
such coins. By this machine thirty-five thousand sov- 
ereigns can be tested in a day. They pass down 



THE RHl'ME OF THINGS 



through a tube until they come to the critical spot. 
If they are of full weight they pass on, but if they are 
a fraction of a grain short, the machine kicks them 
aside, and before they ever see the light of day again, 
they are defaced by a heavy stamp and sent back to 
the mint for another coinage. 

So IS it ni this world of ours. There is a machine 
through which we are all passing every day uncon- 
sciously, where we are weighed to the weight of a 
hair, and, if we are found wanting, "insuliiciency'' is 
stamped upon our faces. We may not read the marks, 
but the power that passes on our place in the universe, 
that determines our hold upon life and usefulness, 
recognizes and heeds the stamp. A\'e doubt the efh- 
ciency of this weighing-machine at our peril. From 
it there is no escape. The Talmud tells the story of 
a lame man and a blind man set to watch an orchard 
of fig trees. Both coveted some ripe fruit ; both 
feared the master's wrath. "But," said the blind man 
to the lame man, "let me take you on my shoulders, 
and I will bear you to where the figs are and neither 
of us will be responsible." A\'hen the master missed 
his figs he summoned the two thieves to trial, and the 
lame man pleaded: "I could not have done it, I am 
lame :'' and the blind man said, 'T could not have done 
it, I am blind." Whereupon the master caused the 
lame man to be placed upon the shoulders of the 
blind man and he passed his judgment upon the two 
together. We are all responsible for our share of 



3^4 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



whatever mischief we are involved in, so exact is the 
book-keeping of God. 

Justice is indifferent to size; it does not care for 
big things; indeed nature oftentimes has contempt for 
mere bigness. The wallowing reptiles of the prehis- 
toric ages were big but clumsy. They disappeared to 
make room for man. You will remember Emerson's 
fable that tells how "the mountain called the squirrel 
little prig," to which the squirrel replied, 

If I cannot carry forests on my back, 

Neither can you crack a nut. 

Sir Isaac Newton wore a magnet in his ring 
which weighed only three grains, but it had the power 
of lifting a weight of seven hundred and forty-six 
grains, or nearly two hundred and fifty times its own 
weight; while the best of the common magnets cannot 
lift more than five or six times their weight. I have 
read of a glow-worm which threw a light from its 
little body so strong that the photographer saw its 
reflection upon the leg of his tripod three feet away. 
Could you so illuminate your face that it would throw 
a proportionate light, one could read by the light of 
your countenance a mile away. A frog four inches in 
length can, it is said, easily jump two feet on level 
ground. A boy five feet, four inches high, jumping 
in the same proportion, would be able to make a leap 
of thirty-two feet under similar conditions. The 
Kearton brothers of England, in a delightful book 
called Wild Life at Home, say the mole is probably 
the strongest and most ferocious animal on the face 



THE RHY^IE OF THINGS 305 

of the whole earth in proportion to its size. They say : 
'Tt is appalhng to think what terrible monsters for 
mischief these moles would be if they had been created 

as large as elephants Give the mole a chance 

to bury his head and forefeet in the ground, 
and he can drag after him a lump of lead as big as 
himself." A cruel experimenter in England, testing 
the mole's strength, tied a string to its hind leg and 
placed the other in a running noose around a dog's 
neck, and the powerful little mole unwittingly hung 
the poor dog, to the shame and disgrace of the cruel- 
hearted man. 

No, there is no virtue in size. It is not the big 
things that are great, but the great things are big. 

Two great Jewish masters, Shammai and Hillel, 
taught in Jerusalem when Jesus was a little boy. A 
Gentile went to Shammai and said, 'Teach me the 
whole law while I stand upon one leg, and I will fol- 
low you." And Shammai drove him off with a rod 
for his levity. Then the Gentile went to Hillel. And 
Hillel promptly answered : 'That which is hateful 
to thyself do not do to thy neighbor. This is the 
whole law, and the rest is commentary." And forth- 
with the inquirer was converted. The Chinese teacher 
Confucius succeeded even better than Hillel, for when 
a disciple asked him if he could state the whole demand 
of life in one word, he replied, ''Yes, is not Reciproc- 
ity that word?" Both of these anticipated the Golden 
Rule of Jesus, which is a short but far-reaching rule. 

Justice knows no trifles. Justice neglects nothing, 



3o6 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



throws nothing away. Everything is important. 
Omit anything, and the "rhyme of things" is broken, 
and justice is marred. Says the Talmud : 

Not one single thing has God created in vain. He created 
the snail as a remedy for the blister; the fly for the sting of a 
wasp; the gnat for the bite of a serpent; the serpent itself for 
healing the itch (or the scab) ; and the lizard (or the spider) 
for the sting of a scorpion. 

A poor way of saying what Emerson said well : 

All are needed by each one. 
Here is another story from the Talmud : A Jewish 
judge, crossing the river in a ferry boat, was pre- 
vented from falling in by a man who had a lawsuit 
before him, whereupon the judge refused further to 
sit upon the case for fear he would be biased in 
favor of his benefactor. Justice is not partial. 
Justice accepts no favors. 

And justice acts now. The balances are poised 
every day. "One pepper-corn today is better than a 
basketfull of pumpkins tomorrow," said another old 
Jewish rabbi. It is not the good you are going to do 
some day; it is the good you are doing now. Each 
day is judgment day at the bar of justice. 

And again, justice is not only between man and 
man, but between men and men. We cannot play 
alone in this world. We cannot go to heaven alone, 
and we cannot go to hell alone; there is no joy or 
misery that can be separated from the joy or misery 
of others. This principle brings justice down among 
our poor relations. It teaches us our obligation to 



THE RHYME OF THINGS 



our humble friends, the rights of the dog and the 
horse, of the deer and the partridge. Read Ernest 
Thompson Seton's Wild Animals I Have Known, or 
his Trail of the Sand-Hill Stag, and see how much 
companionship is possible, nay, how much is fitting 
between us and the wild animals, even between us and 
the wild flowers of the field, what joy there is in the 
"new hunting" of which he writes, and what misery 
in the ''old hunting." Among the delightful pictures 
he shows, the one most to my liking was that of the 
doe and her two little fawns unwittingly taking their 
own picture by the flashlight trap with a camera back 
of it. How full of surprise, of light, of beauty it was. 
Another impressive picture was that of a wild goat 
that had finally wasted away from the awkward shot 
of the hunter in a lonely cabin. The shivering starv- 
ing little kid stood piteously over the dead body of 
the mother that would nevermore lead it to the green 
grass or the refreshing brook. The hunter had 
marred the rhyme of nature with an injustice. 

My sermon has reached its length, but it is not 
finished. A good sermon is never finished. The 
closing paragraph must always be furnished by the 
listener; the final peroration always comes when 
thought is converted into action. That only is a 
good sermon which ripens into effort on the part of 
those who listen to it, and that only is a poor sermon 
which moves no one to action and stirs no one to 
nobility. 

Let me end by going back to Emerson, who tells 



3o8 



LO\"E AND LOYALTY 



us that the house of hfe is full of subtle rhymes sung 
to us by the fateful sisters that spin our lives. They 
sing in perfect time and measure. Let our lives keep 
time with that song. Nay, let us go back of Emerson 
to Merlin, the prophetic bard who ''followed the 
gleam," the ideal, the reflection of the real in which 
all things rest, out of which all things spring, which 
holds sun, moon, and stars; father, mother, and babe; 
Moses, Paul, and Jesus ; Socrates and Lincoln, aye, 
boy and girl, horse and dog, roses and grasses, all in 
its embrace. All of these have their place and their 
right to life and love guaranteed by the justice that is 
''the rhyme of things." 



ABOUT THRONES 

I 



It is for service you are here; 
Not for a throne. 

You have been called, you know, to suffer and to 
work, 

And not to gossip and to doze. 

As in the burning furnace gold is tried. 

Here are men tried: 

And no one's feet are firm, 

Unless with all his heart he strives to live 

Willingly humble for the love of God. 

— Thomas a Kempis 



XVII 



ABOUT THRONES 

It is for service you are here; 
Not for a throne. 

— Thomas a Kempis 

Your predecessors of the Confirmation Class 
alumni have found their texts in the words of Emer- 
son, Browning, Zoroaster, Wordsworth, Oliver Wen- 
dell Holmes, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Lowell, Horace 
Mann, Robert Collyer, and that prolific source which 
the books call "anonymous," in notes from songs that 
have survived the singers, words that have outlived 
the name and date of the spirit that gave them birth. 

I was interested in your quest and am happy in 
your choice. I was touched in a way you cannot 
understand when I found that one of your number 
had been hunting for a motto in his christening book, 
for it put meaning and a certain amount of justifica- 
ton into these whitening locks of mine. It meant that 
my Donald, whom I had held in my arms as a babe 
and into whose baby hands I had placed a copy of 
Thomas a Kempis' Imitation of Christ on his chris- 
tening day, was now grown old enough to be in my 
Confirmation Class, to take interest in our talks about 
God, duty, and destiny, and in our study of religion 
as revealed in humanity's search for truth, love, and 
life. I am so glad you have found a text in this book 

311 



312 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



that I am going to take quite a bit of my sermon time 
to tell you about the book and its writer, for in this 
way I shall give the best interpretation of your motto 
and preach the most valuable part of the sermon 
that belongs to this text : 

It is for service you are here; 

Not for a throne. 

The text is taken from a little book written about 
five hundred and fifty years ago by a dumpling-like 
Dutch monk, described in the Encyclopedia Britan- 
nica as "a, little fresh-colored man, with soft brown 
eyes, who had a habit of stealing away to his cell 
whenever the conversation became too lively." It is 
on record that "he stood upright when the psalms 
were chanted, and even rose on his tiptoes with his 
face turned upward; genial, if shy, and occasionally 
given to punning, as when he said that he preferred 
psalms to salmon." 

He lived a quiet life in a stormy time. Europe 
was torn with wars, scholars were quarreling over 
doctrines, and the church was torn by contending 
bishops and even by rival popes. France and England 
were engaged in hostile war. Huss and Jerome of 
Prague had been put to death for their heresies. 
There was one pope at Rome, a rival pope at Avig- 
non in France, and a third who would like to be pope, 
at Ravenna. The Mohammedans were gathering 
around Constantinople ready to supplant the cross of 
the Christian with the crescent of Islam. But all this 
excitement does not seem to have disturbed the quiet 



ABOUT THRONES 



of the home of John and Gertrude Hammerken, then 
living fifteen miles from the city of Diisseldorf, 
between the rivers Rhine and Meuse, in the princi- 
pality of Cologne, situated in what is now the border 
of Holland. The father was an honest peasant cob- 
bler, the mother kept a ''dame school," where she 
taught little children not only their letters but their 
manners. Her son described her in quaint Latin as 
being ''an attentive custodian of domestic things, who 
worked with alacrity, was sober in her diet, abstemi- 
ous in her drink, careful of her words, and modest in 
behavior." 

There were two sons, John and Thomas. They 
had heard much of the great preacher, John Tauler, 
and the parents had probably heard him preach. He 
belonged to a new order of monks who called them- 
selves "The Friends of God." When the great plague 
of the "Black Death" visited his native city, Stras- 
burg, and all who could fled beyond its gates, 
leaving the city to the dead and the dying, 
Tauler, the great man of God, remained with the 
terror stricken people, nursed them while living, com- 
forted them while dying, and helped to bury them 
when dead. 

So you see these little boys were well started, born 
into a simple, earnest home. They had an industrious 
father and a bright mother, both of whom believed it 
possible to lead a quiet and silent life with God in a 
hurried and noisy world. John, the elder brother, 
went off to school and joined a community known as 



314 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



'The Brothers of Common Life/' a company who 
tried to combine the life of the church and the Hfe of 
the world in a practical community where all worked 
and did their share. Little Thomas was anxious to 
follow his brother John. At thirteen years of age he 
was allowed to go to the same school. Here he 
indulged his passion for books — Latin, Greek, mathe- 
matics, and possibly a little science, and a little logic. 
He found a delightful way of paying his way at 
school. It was before the day of printing, and young 
Thomas loved to copy manuscript. He learned to do 
it very beautifully. It became his business through 
life. He copied Bibles, prayer books, sermons, and 
poems, and there is a tradition of one complete and 
very beautiful Bible copied entirely by his hand, still 
preserved in some European library. He lived to be 
ninety-one years of age, and most of his long Hfe he 
spent in copying. There is said to be a quaint 
portrait of him still extant, and under the picture is 
written, ''I have sought everywhere for peace, but I 
found it not save in a little nook and in a little book." 

When he presented himself at school he was regis- 
tered according to the custom of the time as "Thomas 
of Kempen," and so the father's name of "Littleham- 
mer" was neglected and almost forgotten, while the 
school name of "Thomas a Kempis" took its place. 

The love of quiet and of study drove him to the 
only sure retreat of the scholar in those days. Again 
he followed his brother John to the convent of Mount 
St. Agnes. Here he was admitted as a student when 



ABOUT THRONES 



315 



nineteen, and eight years later, at the age of twenty- 
seven, he took the vows of a monk. He was ordained 
a priest at thirty-three, and became sub-prior at forty- 
five. At one time his brethren so trusted him that they 
appointed him to some kind of office, making him 
something between a steward and a treasurer, but the 
books teU us that he was ^'too simple in worldly 
affairs" and "too absent-minded for the post," and 
they had to let him go back to his cell and to the sub- 
priorship, where he continued diligently to copy and 
write until he was ninety-one years of age, dying on 
July 25, 1471. 

According to one authority, the convent of Mount 
St. Agnes was poor, and all the inmates were obliged 
to work. It had a large trade in manuscripts, and 
Thomas was the most laborious and profitable copyist 
of them all. 

Besides the books which he copied he wrote 
several, to which his name is appended. These are 
some of his titles: The Monk's Alphabet, The Dis- 
cipline of the Cloister, The Life of the Good Monk, 
The Monk's Epitaph, Sermons to Novices, The Soli- 
tary Life, On Silence and On Poverty, Hiimility and 
Patience. He wrote tracts for young people and a 
manual for children. He wrote little books on such 
topics as these : The Garden of Roses, The Valley of 
Lilies, The Consolation of the Poor and the Sick, The 
Soul's Soliloquy, and The Hospital of the Poor. 
Indeed, he is credited with so much work that many 
have thought he could not have written this one book 



3i6 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



more. It is one of the unquestioned great little books 
of the world, and, although there are known copies of 
the little book written in the hand of this quiet son of a 
cobbler, he himself never claimed it as his own, and 
until 1872 it seems not to have been settled that this 
copyist of other people's books was himsef the author 
of a book greater than any he ever copied for the 
market except the Bible itself. It was one of the 
delightful exercises required of this little company of 
copyists that they should make selections for them- 
selves of the noble texts, bright things, and happy 
thoughts that impressed them in the books they 
copied, or that were awakened in their own minds 
while copying. It is probable that in some such way 
as this the beautiful book grew. It grew like a pine 
tree, so quietly, so unconsciously, that evidently the 
author himself did not know it was a great tree. He 
perhaps did not know that he did it, and modestly 
withheld any claims to its authorship. Perhaps it 
was such an honest reflection of everybody's troubles, 
such a revelation of the aspirations of all noble souls, 
perhaps it was drawn so directly from the wisdom of 
the ages, that he did not think it belonged to him. 

It is a simple little book, so plain that little chil- 
dren can understand much of it, and tired women can 
find rest in the reading ; and yet statesmen and philos- 
ophers have loved it. So universal is it that it is loved 
by people of all races and religions. It was written in 
Latin, but has been translated into nearly all languages. 
The author w^as a Catholic, but Protestants and non- 



ABOUT THRONES 



Christians love the book as well as Catholics. A 
Moorish prince once showed a Christian missionary 
a Turkish version of the book, saying that he prized 
it above all other books in his possession except the 
Koran. George Eliot, the wise woman who under- 
stood Darwin and believed in Herbert Spencer's 
teachings, and who loved Tennyson and Browning, 
tells, in her beautiful story of Maggie Tulliver, how 
Maggie, when distressed and unhappy, was given by 
Bob the peddler "a. little, old, clumsy book that had 
the corners turned down in many places, and some 
hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages 
strong pen-and-ink marks, long since brown by time." 
It was a copy of Thomas a Kempis, and Maggie's 
tired heart read the passages marked by the hand 
long since dead : 

"Know that the love of thyself doth hurt thee more than 

anything in the world Blessed are those ears which 

hearken not unto the voice that soundeth outwardly but unto 
the truth which toucheth inwardly." 

A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she 

read She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of 

mysticism or quietism, but this voice out of the far-off middle 
ages came with an unquestioned message to Maggie. 

Thus has it come with its message to many impul- 
sive girls and passionate boys, to tired men and feeble 
women, to the poor and the rich, to the well and the 
sick, to the young and the old. The explanation is 
always the same, and George Eliot has stated it so 
much better than I can, that I quote further from her 
story, which some day will come to you with its high, 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



sweet lessons from this old book that has sun'ived the 
centuries, a book still new and up to date. 

I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned 
book, for which 5-ou need only pa\- sixpence at a book-stall, 
works miracles to this da}', turning bitter waters into sweet- 
ness : while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave 
all things as thej^ were before. It was written down by a hand 
that waited for the heart's prompting; it is the chronicle of a 
solitar}', hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph — not 
written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are 
treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains 
to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consola- 
tions : the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered 
and renounced — in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and 
tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a 
fashion of speech different from ours — ^but under the same 
silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the 
same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness. 

So simple and plain is this book that only learned 
men detect how wide were the sources of the little 
monk's inspiration. A recent student tells us that, 
besides much from the Bible, the author drew from 
the writings of Saint Gregory the Great, of Saint 
Bernard and Saint Francis of Assisi, of Saint Thomas 
and Saint Bonaventura, and the Roman Catholic 
prayer-book. The book shows that the author was 
acquainted with Aristotle, Ovid, and Seneca, and 
that he knew something of Dante and the early legends 
of the Holy Grail, which Tennyson so beautifully 
used half a thousand years afterward in his Idyls of 
the King. 

Let us stay a little longer with the author and the 



ABOUT THRONES 



319 



book, and see how he sought service and not a throne, 
and how, by dihgent serving, he unconsciously found 
a throne. Says one of his brothers of the order, 
"When he was walking abroad with some of the 
brotherhood or with some of his other friends, he 
would suddenly feel an inspiration come upon him 
and would say, 'My beloved, I must now leave you,' 
and meekly beg to be excused, saying, 'Indeed it 
behooves me to go. There is one expecting me in my 
cell'." It was his book that was expecting him, the 
thoughts that wanted to be written down drove him 
to his work, "and the brethren," says the old writer, 
"took well his excuse and were much edified thereby." 

I have spoken of his simple life. In his book he 
tells us. 

By two things a man is lifted up above things earthly, 
namely, by simplicity and purity. Simplicity ought to be in our 
intention, purity in our affections. Simplicity doth tend 

towards God, purity doth apprehend and taste him If 

the world were sincere and upright, then would every creature 
be unto thee a living mirror and a book of holy doctrine. There 
is no creature so small and abject that it representeth not the 
goodness of God. If thou wert inwardly good and pure, then 
wouldst thou be able to see and understand all things well with- 
out impediment, A pure heart penetrateth heaven and hell. 

This was his way of preaching a sermon from the 
beatitude — "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
shall see God." And it was thus that he anticipated 
the story of Sir Galahad, of whom Tennyson sings: 

His strength was as the strength of ten, 
Because his heart was pure. 



320 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



Thomas Littlehammer was not afraid of himself. 
He loved to "loaf and invite his soul/' as Walt Whit- 
man would say. He was happy to be alone, for being 
alone meant to him being with God, that is, with the 
source of high thought, pure feeling, and kindly pur- 
poses. 

The philosophers call Thomas a Kempis a mystic. 
This word has many significations, but in its best 
sense, it means one who strives to be in harmony with 
all good things, who wants to feel God within, and to 
see God without, who feels as another has said, "a 
striving of the soul after union with divinity," who 
rests in the belief that one can find the truth by 
being true and know love by loving. Our author 
says : 

Love is a great thing, yea, a great and thorough good 

Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing more courageous, nothing 
higher, nothing wider, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller nor 
better in heaven and earth; because Love is born of God, and 
can rest but in God above all created things. 

Although this book has been so loved and cherished 
for five hundred years, its real form and original pur- 
pose seem to have been lost sight of for the last four 
hundred years. In 1872 Dr. Hirsche, a Dutch 
scholar, made the discovery that this book was a 
book of poetry and not of prose, that it was written 
metrically, and that in the Latin it lends itself readily 
to chanting. Indeed its real title seems to be Musica 
Ecclesiastica, church music. It was meant to be in- 
toned in church or in private. It is a book of hymns 



ABOUT THRONES 



321 



and prayers, as well as a book of meditations. Dr. 
Hirsche was the first of modern scholars to under- 
stand the significance of some peculiar punctuation 
marks in the old manuscripts. They were evidently 
meant to indicate the inflections of the reader or the 
singer, to serve the purpose of musical notations, and 
when similar notations were found in the other 
known writings of the shy little monk, his author- 
ship to this disowned book was practically estab- 
lished. 

The common English version of this book, such 
as the christening copy in which you looked for your 
text, is printed, like the New Testament, as prose, 
and is divided into verses, but in a later and better 
English translation it is printed in lines and looks 
like the poetry it is. This revised version tries to pre- 
serve the Latin terseness and its measured lines. In 
the common version, the four books into which the 
work is divided are arranged as follows : 

Book I. Admonitions Useful for a Spiritual Life. 
Book 11. Admonitions Concerning Inward Things. 
Book III. Of Internal Consolation. 
Book IV. Concerning Communion. 

But in the revised version, which follows the best 
manuscripts, the order of the third and fourth book 
is changed, and we have the following arrangement 
and titles : 

Book I. Warnings Useful to a Spiritual Life. 
Book II. Warnings to Draw Us to the Inward life. 



322 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



Book IIL A Pious Encouragement to the Holy Communion. 
Book IV. A Book of Inward Consolation. 

In my copy of the revised version the translator has 
indicated by marginal dates how the whole book may 
be read through in a year by reading from twelve to 
thirty lines a day, according to the paragraphs. This 
is a good suggestion. It is not a book to read 
through at one sitting. Probably those who like it 
best have never read it through as you read a story. 
It is a book to snatch a few sentences from w^hen you 
are tired and sleepless, a book to look into when you 
arise in the morning fresh and hopeful, a book to pick 
a sentence from when you are cross and peevish, a 
book to quiet yourself by w^hen you are very happy 
or very sad. Much of it is beyond childhood and 
behind old age, but there is in it something for every 
life and for every mood of life. 

All this is true of the book because it is not a 
book about the things that we may get and lose. It is 
not a description of things that we can go 
to and then go away from. It is not about 
clothes, or money, or lands. Here is no gos- 
sip about good or bad people. It is not a descrip- 
tion of stars or flowers, of country or of city, but it is 
a book about love and A^irtue, honesty and indus- 
try. It is a book about life. It is a book about things 
within, a book of the heart and the mind. But you 
ask me about the text : 

It is for service you are here; 
Not for a throne. 



ABOUT THRONES 



323 



Or, as you have it in your version — 

Thou earnest to serve, not rule. 

We are here to be servants, not masters. Everything 
that has a permanent place in the world must be a 
servant. The earthworm, as Darwin has shown us, 
is the great farmer of nature. It not only plows the 
soil, but it makes the soil. The cactus prepares the 
way for the grass, the grass for the tree, the tree 
for corn and wheat, for apples and grapes, and these 
give to the life of the beast, the beast to the life of 
man, and man to the life of the world. 

How serve? I do not know. In any way, only 
so that it is giving of ourselves. If the story of 
Thomas Littlehammer and his great little book teaches 
us anything, it teaches us that we cannot choose our 
service. The best service is that which we cannot 
help doing. It is doing the next thing in the most 
willing way that we can, doing it quickly, doing it 
gladly, doing it simply. 

Brother Thomas probably wrote the book for his 
pupils, the children of his Confirmation Class. He 
did not think it was much of a book, and the world 
rated it no higher than he did. The world neglected to 
sing it, forgot how to use it. The book even lost its 
name, and was called after the title of the first 
chapter. The Imitation of Christ. 

It is not for you or for me to write a book that 
will live five hundred years. It is not for us to copy the 
books of the masters, to make precious, costly, beauti- 



324 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



ful volumes when the printing press can make them 
so cheaply. We may never know how to pray either 
with hand or with heart in any great and noble fash- 
ion. But we may always be like the little child in the 
song: 

By Alpine lake, 'neath shady rock, 
The herd boy knelt beside his flock, 
And softly told, with pious air, 
His alphabet as evening prayer. 

Unseen, his pastor lingered near. 
"My child, what means the sound I hear? 
May I not in the worship share, 
And raise to heaven my evening prayer? 

"Where'er the hills and valleys blend, 
The sounds of prayer and praise ascend. 
My child, a prayer yours cannot be: 
You've only said your A B C." 

"I have no better way to pray: 
All that I know, to God I say; 
I tell the letters on my knees : 
He makes the words himself to please." 

The scholars have found a curious old story writ- 
ten about two hundred years before the little monk 
wrote the great little book that gives us our text, a 
story which teaches in a pretty way the truth that 
our service is a matter not of "what" but of "how," 
not of the thing we do but of the way we do it, not 
of the amount of our doing, but of our willingness. 
Hear the story of "Our Lady's Tumbler." A min- 
strel who used to go up and down the world playing 
on his lute, dancing before proud people's houses, and 



ABOUT THRONES 



325 



tumbling in the public square for the amusement of 
the crowd, grew tired of his frivolity and ashamed 
of his tumbling, leaping, and dancing, and sought 
admission into the holy house, where the praying 
monks stayed. He joined the Holy Order of Clair- 
vaux, but when he was admitted, he found to his 
great sorrow that he did not know how to chant. He 
could not say the creed or sing the "Ave Maria." He 
did not even know the Lord's Prayer. He knew 
only how to tumble, leap, and dance, and when he 
saw the pious men at their high prayers and heard 
them sing their beautiful hymns, he was sore dis- 
tressed, for he knew not how to serve his Lord and 
Master in such a way. So he hid himself in shame 
in the dark crypt of the monastery. There to his 
delight he came upon the image of Holy Mary neg- 
lected in the dim shadows of the lower arches, in 
what you might call the cathedral cellar. In his 
despair he threw aside his robe and said, "I will not 
be like a tethered ox doing nought but browse. I can- 
not serve thee by chanting; I will sen^e thee in tum- 
bling. Sweet lady, despise not what I know, for I 
would fain serve you in good faith and without 
guile." 

So the tumbler began his leaps before the Virgin. 
He leaped low and he leaped high, first under, then 
over. He threw himself on his knees. He vaulted the 
French vault, and the Spanish vault. He strained 
himself as dancers did in Brittany, as they did in 
Lorraine, until the sweat rolled down his brow ; and 



326 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



he said, "Lady, despise not your slave. I adore you 
with heart, body, and feet, for I cannot other- 
wise." Then a great peace came into his life, and 
day by day as the other brethren went to their chant- 
ings, he went below, laid aside his vestments, and 
danced and vaulted, sprang and tumbled at the feet 
of the heavenly queen. At last one of the brethren, 
curious to know how this converted minstrel wor- 
shiped, followed and watched him, and reported the 
dreadful scandal to the abbot. But the abbott was a 
wise man. He cautioned the monk to speak to no 
one, and went and concealed himself and watched this 
novice at his worship. And as he looked he was 
astounded, for he saw, or thought he saw, the holy 
mother in actual presence come down from heaven to 
fan the exhausted tumbler. And the abbot knew that 
even the minstrel's poor service was acceptable, 
because it was the sincere service of his heart, the 
offering of the only thing he could do in the best way 
he could do it. And when he came to die, the abbot 
caused the monks to sing at his bedside, and when 
dead to bury him with honor. Then the abbot told 
the brethren what he had seen in the crpyt. "Of a 
truth, he worshiped well. God grant that our service 
may be as acceptable," said the holy man. 

This reminds me of one of Tolstoy's stories about 
a great archbishop who visited three mendicants upon 
an island, who spent their days in simple kindness 
and loving helpfulness. The archbishop asked them 
how they prayed, and was shocked to find that they 



ABOUT THRONES 



327 



knew only one prayer, and it was simply this : "You 
three have mercy on us three." The archbishop was 
sorry that they had no more knowledge of religion 
than this, and so with great labor he taught them 
the Lord's Prayer. They were not apt scholars. 
They would forget the first part while they were 
reciting the last, and when they had gone through 
the first part they would forget the last. But 
finally they acquired the whole of the Lord's Prayer, 
and the good bishop, encouraged, took ship and left 
them, thinking he had advanced them far in the holy 
life. But the ship had sailed only a little way when 
lo, hurrying over the water came a little boat with the 
three mendicants. The bishop's big ship hove to, and 
the hermits climbed to the deck and said, "Good 
bishop, we have forgotten the prayer; please teach it 
us again." Then the bishop crossed himself and said, 
"Acceptable to God is your own prayer. Go back to 
your simple and loyal life, and pray for us." The 
next morning there seemed to be a shining place on 
the ship where the simple mendicants had come 
aboard. 

It is not the "prayers" we say, but the praying 
life that lasts the longest and goes the farthest. 

When Berengaria, the noble queen of Richard 
Coeur de Lion, came to die, so runs the legend, she 
called the mother superior of the nunnery to her side 
and asked for the jeweled blade which King 
Richard had worn when he fought for his Savior's 
grave in Palestine. She then with his sharp blade 



328 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



cut off her long tresses of golden hair, and asked the 
faithful sisters to braid it into twelve slender chains 
and weave them into one shining rope, "soft as silk 
and strong as hempen cable." The sisters wrought 
all night, and brought the chain to her with the 
morning light. She pressed it with her two white 
hands, and said with her dying breath : 

My liege lord sleeps in Fontevraud, and there 
Above his tomb hang ye a jeweled lamp 
Swinging from this fair chain — sole part of me 
That age can wither not, nor time deface ! 
Let the lamp burn with ever-during flame. 

The hair of the head is said to be the most imperish- 
able part of the human body, but helpful deeds, 
kindly thoughts, loving service, outlast the very hairs 
of our head, and from them^may be woven a chain to 
suspend the swinging sanctuary lamp that shall give 
light and sanctity to many when we are gone. 

But better than these quaint legends, these old 
stories wrought into beautiful poems, are the joy and 
light that are shed by the humble and willing ones 
here today, the good things that are being done, 
the kind things that are being said, the pure loves that 
sweeten the life of our own day. 

A few months ago in Alabama I saw unfor- 
tunate men cleaning the streets of a proud city, with 
ball and chain fastened to their ankles. I saw men 
hobbled with chains, carrying lumber and working 
in coal mines. This seems to the judges and legisla- 
tors of Alabama the best way to deal with what they 



ABOUT THRONES 



329 



call ''criminals." College graduates, men who have 
been in Congress, and preachers of religion looked on 
approvingly day by day and said, ''There is nothing 
else to do!" But a colored man whose parents had 
been slaves, who earned his living by giving baths to 
sick people, said to the mayor and the police justice 
of that city, "Give to me your convict women, those 
that are now lying in idle corruption in your jails, 
surrounded by degradation, and I will see what I can 
do with them." Mayor and Judge said, in their 
imbecility and incredulity, "What can you do with 
these degraded women?" He replied, "Let me try. 
I only ask you to give me your washing and help me 
get the dirty clothes of your neighbors." And they 
in their despair consented. 

The young man then bought a rickety old laundry 
on the outskirts of the town and furnished it in a 
primitive way. He and his intelligent young wife 
went out there to live, and they said to these colored 
women, "Come and live with us. We will give you 
work and pay you for it. We will give you home, 
advice, sympathy, and protection." The young color- 
ed man, who had to earn the daily bread for wife 
and three children by hard toil each day, said, "I 
will become sponsor for you before the law." 

All this had happened only a few weeks pre- 
vious to my visit. This colored man took me to see 
his laundry, and the judge of the police court went 
out with us for the first time to see those whom he 
had originally sentenced to prison and then recom- 



330 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



mitted to the laundry. We found there twelve or 
fifteen women, sober and obedient, attentive to their 
work, law abiding, unguarded, and willing to stay, 
though they might escape. The women ceased their 
washing and gathered around the ironing-tables to 
listen while we talked. I told them they were "good 
enough for God," though the world cast them out, 
and that "beneath the troubled surface of their 
crime there lies a depth of purity immovable." The 
judge with tear-dimmed eyes confessed his delight, 
and said to them: "This man 'Jim' has solved the 
problems that our statute books have failed to solve. 
I am a college graduate ; I have studied law ; I have a 
commission from the governor of the State of Ala- 
bama ; but *Ji^' taught me what I have not found 
in my law books." And then "Jim" bore his testi- 
mony to the faithful service, the temperate lives, the 
willing labor of those women, whose chief anxiety 
now was that they might not be thrust back into the 
bondage of the street when their sentences expired. 
They want to stay with honest people where 
high purposes, Bible thoughts, kind words, and 
brotherly and sisterly contact may continue to 
sweeten their wretchedness and sanctify their work 
at the washtub. 

It is for service you are here; 

Not for a throne. 

But what of "Jim?" Did he look tired under 
this load of responsibility which included the heavy 
money debt necessary to inaugurate and carry on 



ABOUT THRONES 



331 



this work? Not in the least. He does not need our 
pity, though he does deserve our help. He had the 
joy of a good work. He knew the strength of the 
old colored servant whose young mistress pitied him 
because he had to carry her in his arms from the boat 
to the dry land. 

"1 am so heavy," she said. 

''Don't you mind me, missis, I done gone toted 
ba'ls o' sugar befo'." 

If we can only interpret our load, whatever it 
may be, in terms of helpfulness, turn our burdens into 
sweetness, we can carry them more easily and for a 
longer time. 

My sermon is preached. The text, I trust, will 
stay with you and help you to emulate the life of 
the carpenter's son, the life that made the cross more 
beautiful than the crown, converted sorrow into 
something higher than joy, and, through pain and 
opposition, found the truth that is light and the life 
that is grace. 



i 



"LINCOLN SOLDIERS' 



''LINCOLN SOLDIERS" 



Lincoln soldiers were our fathers, in the name of Liberty. 
As Christ died to make men holy, as they died to make men 
free, 

We would live to crown that dying with a grandeur yet to be, 
As Love goes marching on. 

Chorus: 

Glory, glory hallelujah, etc. 

Lincoln soldiers were our fathers, Lincoln soldiers would we be, 
We would live for Truth and Justice as they died for Liberty, 
We would learn today's new duties from each fresh occasion's 
plea. 

As Right goes marching on. 

We would stop the mouths of cannons booming over land and 
sea. 

We would crown the hero's priceless gift with gentler ministry, 
We would rim with white the banner that they Hung above the 
free. 

As Peace goes marching on. 

Lincoln soldiers marching onward in the morning's golden glow, 
We would pluck the wayside thistle and lay its proud head low, 
We would plant a Hower wherever there is room for flower to 
grow. 

As Youth goes marching on. 

Evelyn H. Walker 



XVIII 

"LINCOLN SOLDIERS" 

Die when I may, I want it said of me hy those who knew 
me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a -dower 
when I thought a dower would grow. — Abraham Lincoln 

Let me tell you of the circumstances under which 
the good Abraham Lincoln spoke the words of your 
class motto. 

In a little book recently published, entitled Lin- 
coln in Story, by Silas G. Pratt, a book which I wish 
you all might own and which you can certainly all 
read, Mr. Pratt tells us that these words were spoken 
to Lincoln's early friend, Joshua R. Speed, who kept 
a store in Springfield in the early days of Illinois. 

When Abraham Lincoln, the awkward young man 
from New Salem, came with his saddle bags to 
Springfield on a borrowed horse for the purpose of 
opening a law ofiice, Joshua Speed invited him to 
share his bed in the vacant loft above the store, 
because it made Lincoln so sad when he thought he 
should have to go in debt to the extent of sixteen 
dollars and some odd cents, the sum which a bed and 
bedding would cost him if he undertook to furnish a 
room for himself. 

This good and wise friend was in Washington 
about ten days before Lincoln's second inauguration. 
The closing days of Congress were making great 

335 



336 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



demands upon the President. There were many bills 
to sign. The great war was at its full height. Per- 
haps a million men were under arms, and awful 
issues were pending. Washington was full of visitors 
— politicians seeking appointments for themselves 
or their friends, contractors and speculators pushing 
their business, unhappy mothers, discouraged wives, 
and forlorn fathers, seeking furloughs, discharges, 
or pardons for soldiers that were sick, weak, or in 
disgrace. This great tide of complaints, grievances, 
and petitions surged through the President's room 
from morning till night, until he was worn down in 
health and spirit. Mr. Speed in his descripton of the 
occasion says: 

The hour had arrived to close the door against all further 
callers. No one was left in the room excepting the President, 
myself, and two ladies, dressed in humble attire, who had been 
sitting near the fireplace, modestly waiting their turn. The 
President turned to them and said : "Well, ladies, what can I 
do for you?" Then both began to speak at once. One was 
the wife and the other the mother of a man who was in prison 
for having resisted the draft in Pennsylvania. "Give me your 
petition," said the President. "We have got no petition. We 
could not write one and had no money to pay for writing it, 
and we thought it best to come and see you," said the aged 
mother. "Oh," said the President, "I understand your case." 
Then he rang his bell and sent a messenger to the proper 
officer asking him to bring a list of those who were in prison 
for this offense. Mr. Lincoln asked if there were any differences 
in the charges or degrees of guilt. The officer replied, "None." 
"Well," said the President, "these fellows have suffered long 
enough. I have thought so for some time. Now my mind is 



"LINCOLN SOLDIERS" 



337 



made up on the subject. I believe I will turn out the whole 
flock. So draw up the order, General, and I will sign it." This 
was done, and the general left the room. Turning to the 
women, the President said : "Now ladies, you can go ; your man 
will be home to meet you." The younger of the two ran 
forward and knelt in thankfulness. "Get up," he said, "don't 
kneel to me, but thank God and go." The old lady seized his 
big hand in both of hers and said, "Good-bye, Mr. Lincoln, I 
shall probably never see you again till we meet in heaven." The 
President was deeply moved. He instantly took her right hand 
in both his own and said: "I am afraid with all my troubles 
I shall never get to the resting-place you speak of, but if I do 
I am sure I shall find you. That you wish me to get there is, I 
believe, the best wish you could make for me. Good-bye." 

Said Mr. Speed : "Lincoln, with my knowledge of your 
nervous sensibility, it is a wonder to me that such scenes do not 
kill you." With a languid voice the President replied : "Yes, 
you are to a certain degree right; I ought not to undergo what 
I often do. I am very unwell now. My feet and hands of late 
seem to be always cold, and I ought, perhaps, to be in bed; but 
things of the sort you have just seen do not hurt me. To tell 
the truth, that scene is the only thing today that has made me 
forget my condition or given me any pleasure. I have in that way 
made two people happy and alleviated the distress of many a 
poor soul whom I never expect to see. That old lady was no 
counterfeit. The mother spoke out in all the features of her 
face. It is more than one can often say, that in doing right he 
has made two people happy in one day. Speed, die when I may, I 
want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I ahvays 
plucked a thistle and planted a Hower when I thought a Hoiver 
would grow. 

Surely you have chosen a beautiful motto, and 
the motto grows more beautiful when it is placed in 
its proper setting and we know the conditions under 



33^ 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



which it was spoken. Can we realize the circum- 
stances? The White House, beset by the influential, 
the wealthy, the cultured, and the beautiful ; the floors 
of Congress teeming with excited life; the great 
armies of Grant, Sherman, and the others forming a 
great battle line reaching from Maryland to Texas; 
and here, at the close of the fatiguing day, were two 
unlettered women from Pennsylvania, too simple or 
too ignorant to write a petition or to know the proper 
way of approaching a President. They did not know 
enough, or were not rich enough, to secure the 
services of a lawyer, a congressman, or an ''influen- 
tial friend," such as represent the usual way of 
reaching the President. He was too tired and too 
busy to look into details, but he was too just to be 
partial. He knew there were others in prison as the 
result of the same rash act, the same mistake; and 
he knew further that men are not made better by 
imprisonment. His tender heart had for some time 
felt that ''these fellows have suffered long enough," 
hence he gave the order, "Turn out the whole flock," 
so as to be sure the son and husband of these poor 
women "in humble attire," as Mr. Speed put it, was 
among them, and sent the women home rejoicing. 

My dear children, you do not need any further 
help from me to find a sermon in this beautiful text 
which you have chosen and the more beautiful story 
that enshrines it, but let us try to think it out together. 
First, we will think of the man who gave us our 
text; then of the "Lincoln soldiers" whom he led and 



"LINCOLN SOLDIERS 



339 



inspired; and after that we will think of the 
"thistles" and the ''flowers" which you and I may 
pluck or plant. 

First, the man. Oh, how the story tempts us. 
What a great story it is of this man, born in the log 
cabin with clay floor, in the wild woods of Kentucky 
— the man whose father held him on his knee while 
he told the sad story of a grandfather shot dead by 
the lurking Indian in sight of his three little boys. 
He told how the elder ran to the cabin, seized the 
musket, and laid the Indian low, while the second 
ran to the fort, three miles off, to give the alarm. 
And little Thomas, only six years old, was spared to 
be the father of Abraham Lincoln. 

''God bless my mother," Lincoln once said to a 
friend, "To her I owe all that I am or hope to be in 
the world." But when the boy was nine years old, 
in another cabin, deep in the forests of Indiana, the 
little mother sickened. With her hand upon his 
head she asked him to remember the Bible stories she 
had taught him, to keep God's day holy, to tell no 
lies, to say no wicked words, to read the Bible which 
had been her comfort and strength; and then she 
died, and when the neighbors came little Abe sobbed, 
"I haven't any mother now." About this time Abe 
was learning to write, and he wrote for his father 
to the good old elder they had known in Kentucky, 
asking him to come and say a word over his mother's 
grave. It took three months for the letter to go and 
the preacher to come, but he came at last, the neigh- 



340 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



bors gathered under the trees around the grave, and 
the heart of httle Abe was sweetened and strengthened. 

I cannot dwell on this story. You know a part of 
it already, but there is much more of it to learn. 
You may be sure that the trees and the wild woods 
had much to do in making noble the heart of Abra- 
ham Lincoln, for in lonely places is the soul com- 
panioned with great thoughts and high purposes, and 
in the solitudes does God oftentimes most consciously 
dwell in the hearts of his children. 

You know of the good stepmother, who ''always 
understood him." You know how he used to ride 
on horseback with his bag of corn through the deep 
woods to the mill; how he earned his first dollar by 
rowing two passengers to the middle of the Ohio 
River to catch the steamer, and how they each threw 
half a dollar back into the bottom of his boat. When 
he was a great President he said : ''It seems a very 
little thing in these days, but that trifle was an impor- 
tant incident in my life. I could hardly think that 
by honest work I had earned a dollar. The world 
seemed wider and fairer before me. I was a hopeful 
boy from that day." 

I like the other story, how, when a clerk in a 
country store in Illinois, counting his cash one even- 
ing, he found that he had made a mistake in change, 
and had taken six cents too much from a woman 
who lived three miles away. And after the store was 
closed that night, he walked the six miles to return 
the sixpence. 



"LINCOLN SOLDIERS 



341 



You know the story of the flatboat that was buik 
on the Sangamon by the help of him who was already 
"Honest Abe," and how he helped take the boat 
down the Sangamon, down the Illinois, down the 
Mississippi, all the way to New Orleans. The best 
part of this story is that when he saw a slave auction 
block and heard a man sell a colored woman as he 
would a horse, the tall raftsman exclaimed, ''My God, 
see that! If the chance is ever given me, I will hit 
that thing hard !" 

Dear and familiar stories crowd upon me: The 
story of Lincoln, the land surveyor, lending his horse 
to the poor man who must hurry to the land office 
fifteen miles away to save his homestead before the 
speculator should arrive to buy it from under his 
feet; of the young lawyer dismounting and wading 
into the mud to free a poor pig that had become hope- 
lessly imprisoned under the fence because there was 
a look in that pig's eye that seemed to say to him, 
"There goes my last chance," and he could not stand 
it ; and a story told by Mr. Speed of an occasion when 
he was traveling across country with Lincoln in com- 
pany with a party of lawyers. Missing him in a 
thicket of wild plum and crab trees where the others 
had stopped to water their horses. Speed asked, 
"Where is Lincoln?" "Oh," replied one, "the last I saw 
of him he was hunting a nest to put back two young 
birds that had been blown out." This he did because, as 
he said, the cry of the birds would have disturbed him 
all night, and he wanted to sleep. And so the narra- 



342 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



tive grows richer and deeper. "Honest Abe'' becomes 
the loved and trusted adviser of the poor and the 
defender of the wicked, for they also have rights and 
need of pity; then he becomes the congressman, the 
great debater, the President, the emancipator, the 
martyr. 

Now we come to the ''Lincoln soldiers." How 
they did sing — I ought to say. How we did sing, for I 
was one of them. 

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more, 
From Mississippi's winding stream and from New England's 
shore ; 

We leave our plows and workshops, our wives and children 
dear. 

With hearts too full for utterance, with but a silent tear, 

We dare not look behind us, but steadfastly before; 

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more ! 

Oh, the terrible war, four years long! More than 
2,000,000 soldiers, first and last, were under his 
leadership, and perhaps half as many earnest, honest, 
deluded men on the other side, for whom he also 
yearned with a father's love and a mother's pity. 
"Linkum soldiers," the colored people called the 
northern men, and the colored people that flocked by 
the thousands to the camps of those ''Linkum 
soldiers" were called in turn "contrabands" — con- 
trabands of war — because they were property, owned 
by those who were in rebellion against the govern- 
ment, and our government confiscated them under 
the articles of war, as it confiscated cotton or mules, 
corn or steamboats. 



"LINCOLN SOLDIERS" 



343 



Some of these Lincoln soldiers were your fathers, 
uncles, and grandfathers. You know many of them. 
I well remember the circumstances under which I 
first heard that name applied to me. It was when I 
lay in a Corinth cornfield with a crushed ankle. A 
''contraband" had brought some water from a distant 
spring, and another was bathing my painful ankle. 

A great-hearted old aunty was fanning me and 
chafing my brow. Solicitous for her patient, she 
called to the gathering crowd: ''Stand back there! 
It am a Linkum soldier who has done gone an' got 
run over. Stand back, I say; give 'm air." The 
phrase "Linkum soldier" went through me with a 
thrill. I was proud of the title then; I am more 
proud of the title now. "Lincoln soldier" then meant 
one who believed in liberty for all men; one who 
thought that a black man was a man loved of God 
and that he should be respected by all the children of 
God. "Lincoln soldier" then meant loyalty to the 
stars and stripes, reverence for the Declaration of In- 
dependence, fidelity to the Constitution of the United 
States. "Lincoln soldier" then meant that, if need 
be, one would die for these things. It meant then 
carrying a sword, using a musket, or, as was my task, 
serving the cannon, with its loud-mouthed terrors. 
But, even then, "Lincoln soldier" meant a love for a 
President whose heart yearned for the enemies of 
his country, who respected their feelings, who recog- 
nized their rights, who remembered that they had 
inherited not only slaves but slavery, that they were 



344 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



brought up to believe that slavery was right, 
that, as Lincoln said in his second great inaugural : 

Both armies read the same Bible and pray to the same God, 

and each invoked his aid against the other Let us judge 

not that we be not judged. The prayer of both could not be 
answered, that of neither has been answered fully. The 
Almighty has his own purposes to fulfil. 

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty 
scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that 
it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two 
hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and 
until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by 
another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand 
years ago, so still it must be said that "the judgments of the 
Lord are true and righteous altogether." 

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firm- 
ness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us finish 
the work we are in — to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for 
him who shall have borne the battle and for his widows and his 
orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a 
lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. 

Even then, to be a ^'Lincoln soldier" was to be 
led by one who has been called the "prince of par- 
doners." His was a forgiving heart. 

The word "amnesty" means forgetting. Presi- 
dent Lincoln never wearied of issuing his proclama- 
tions of amnesty. One, two, three, four, and more 
of such proclamations he issued, promising to forget 
and forgive everything to those who would come 
back, relent, and pledge themselves anew to the 
Union and trust themselves once more to the law of 
kindness and the gospel of liberty and love. 



"LINCOLN SOLDIERS 



345 



One of the important books concerning Abraham 
Lincohi is a large book of five hundred pages, entitled 
Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction. It reveals as no 
other one book does, how great was his for- 
giving heart, how far-reaching was his mercy, 
how divine was his patience and his tender- 
ness. How he hated hatred, and how in love 
with love was he; how he pitied the beaten, how he 
regretted violence. He would have saved the coun- 
try from war by having the government pay full 
value for every slave claimed in the southern states, 
only so that thereafter there should be no more slaves. 
Now everybody sees how wise and just was the sug- 
gestion, and how cheap a way out of the trouble that 
would have been. 

\Yq have gone far enough now to see something 
of what it means for you to take upon yourselves the 
title of ''Lincoln soldiers." Little boys and girls, mem- 
bers of a church Confirmation class thirty-seven years 
after the gracious President has been laid to rest, 
with the nation, aye, the modern world, in tears as it 
never was before or after, over the death of any 
other man, you can be Lincoln soldiers ! How is 
that possible? What can you do, and, still more, 
how can you be worthy the name? 

First, 3^ou can, like the Lincoln soldiers on the 
first roll, love liberty. You can love freedom, and, if 
necessary, you can die for it. You can hate with a 
divine hatred all kinds of slavery, and there are many 
kinds that still remain. You have read Uncle Tom's 



346 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



Cabin. You know of the Emancipation Proclama- 
tion. I told you of Lincoln's oath when he saw the 
slave auction. I want you to believe that the Declara- 
tion of Independence is a sacred document, that 
Lincoln was right, that your fathers were right when 
they fought against slavery. Oh, how bad it was, 
how sad it was ! How glad we ought to be that it is 
all over. And I want you to believe that the results 
of freedom are all good. I want 3^ou to know more 
and more the story of Frederick Douglass, of Booker 
T. Washington, Paul Dunbar, and the many other 
colored men and women that have risen out of 
slavery and ignorance, obscurity and opposition, to be 
great and good, to be wise and useful, to be noble 
and helpful. 

Last month I was in Alabama. While there I 
found on the Gulf of Mexico a colored village which 
is still called ^'Afriky-Town." The basis of this 
community was a shipload of Congo negroes who 
were captured in Africa and brought to America to 
serve as slaves just before the war. They landed as 
late as 1859, and their captors, after clothing their 
naked bodies with American calico and coarse can- 
vas, put them to work on their steamboats and plan- 
tations on the Alabama river, where they continued 
to work for their captors away up to the end of the 
war in 1865. Some fifteen of the original fifty-three 
stolen negroes are still alive. I shook hands and 
talked with four of them. One of them could spell 
his name, Osia Keeby, the name which he said his 



"LINCOLN SOLDIERS" 



347 



mother gave him in Dahomey. He was nineteen 
years old when he came. As I talked to him he pointed 
to a white man driving by on the road, and, drop- 
ping his voice said. "Thar's the nephey of the man 
what brung us over." Aunt Zuma had the tribal 
scars on her face, the brand which was put upon her 
when a babe. Uncle Peter Lee could remember well 
the old country, though he thought he must now be a 
hundred years old. He raised his withered old hand 
to heaven, and looking up devoutly as if he could see 
beyond the skies, said, "I thank God I am free." 
Aunt Zuma said, ''Oh, it is great to be free!" And 
then she crooned for me a native hearth-song which 
her mother had taught her. She hoped her mother 
had heard that they were free before she died. 

Lincoln soldiers must love freedom, and you Lin- 
coln soldiers of the second roll must realize that there 
are other slaveries than the slavery of body. It is 
great to be free in mind, to be free in conscience, to 
be free from bad habits, coarse desires, and selfish 
motives. Lincoln soldiers must love freedom. 

But, freedom, like money, wealth, or beauty, is 
good only when you do good with it. It is always 
in order to ask, ''What are you going to do with your 
freedom, as with any other good thing?" All these 
things have been a curse to many, and may be a curse 
to you. 

There is a higher word than freedom in the dic- 
tionary of the true Lincoln soldier, and that is 
service. The Lincoln soldier seeks not his own ease. 



348 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



culture, or safety. He is a member of society, a 
citizen of the nation and of the world. He is not 
like the old negro peddler whom I overtook not 
far from "Afriky-Town" with a basket full of tin- 
ware on his head. He had cooked in both armies, he 
said, and they were both good to him, for all soldiers 
like good cooking, and he was a good cook. So far 
so good. But when I asked : ^'Are you sorry that we 
came down here and set you free? Do you wish you 
were back where you were before the war?" he 
replied, '1 jes' soon. I never had to pay no taxes or 
buy no clothes then, and I didn't have to work no 
harder nor now." He had freedom, but he did not 
know how to use it. He had not learned the next 
word — service. 

Again, as Lincoln soldiers, you must live for an 
ideal. Your lives must be swayed with great pur- 
poses. And yet you must be gentle, pitiful, and help- 
ful. How ? 

Now we come to our motto. First, by plucking 
thistles. Why pluck thistles? Because the thistle is 
a coarse plant, that multiplies with great rapidity. 
Unless plucked, one thistle this year will sow a garden 
full next year, and in a few years it will fill the 
fields and make barren the farm. The thistle offers 
food and shelter to but few animals. And so persist- 
ent is it that the law of most states declares it a 
"noxious weed" and inflicts a penalty upon the 
farmer who permits it to grow. 

A little more than six hundred years ago a great 



'LINCOLN SOLDIERS" 



349 



preacher named John Tauler, who was connected 
with the Strasburg Cathedral in Germany, compared 
the slaves of passion, and appetite, the weak and silly 
men of his time, to 

foolish asses, which never learn any other forms of speech 
than their own braying, or seek any other comfort or sweet- 
ness, but only rough, tasteless thistles, while they have to 
endure scorn and many a hard and cruel blow, which they 
really do not deserve. 

These, then, are the thistles to be plucked. First, 
out of our own hearts and lives, the coarse and 
crowding selfishness, the silly habits that take posses- 
sion of the garden plots in our hearts. Next, the 
thistles in the community, the narrow creeds, the 
habits that make men selfish, make lives exclusive, 
make boys proud and girls silly. Oh, my children, 
pluck these thistles in order that you may have room 
to plant the flowers. 

"Plant a flower." You know the flowers that I 
would speak of. You know the flowers that grow in 
the Lincoln garden. You know the flowers which it 
is the business of the "Lincoln soldier" to cultivate. 
The flowers of kindliness, of helpfulness; the flowers 
of the spirit, that bloom into the Beatitudes, the 
Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments; the flowers 
that will naturally grow in your hearts if you do but 
give them an opportunity. I will ask John Tauler to 
preach to us again. He says : 

Know this, dear children, that if all our teachers were 
buried and all our books were burned, we should still find 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



enough teaching and contrast to ourselves in the life and 
example of our Lord Jesus Christ, wherever we might need it, 
if we only diligently and earnestly learn how he went before, 
in silent patience, in gentleness, in adversity, in temptations, in 
resignation, in scorn, in poverty, and in all manner of bitter 
suffering and pain. 

For, if we wish to attain to great and fruitful peace in God, 
in nature, but not of this world, we must first diligently and 
earnestly learn to make the best of things, and to endure, kindly 
and meekly, the behavior of all kinds of men, their ways and 
customs : for they will often try to afflict us. The behavior of 
other men and their ways will often vex and displease us; it 
will seem to us as though one person talked too much, another 
too little; one was too indolent, another too energetic; one err- 
ing in one way, another in another. Customs and fashions are 
so many and so various that they assail us in many secret and 
unsuspected ways. We must learn to withstand them all vigor- 
ously, that they may take no root in us. 

My dear children, I wish I could say in closing 
some things that you can remember. I have loved 
you on account of your open minds, your warm 
hearts, your earnest spirits. I know better than you 
can, for I speak from the vantage ground of my 
gray hairs, how the thistles may lodge in the garden 
of your souls. I want you to be good gardeners, 
worthy the name of Lincoln soldiers. I would have 
you prompt to pluck thistles and to plant flowers in 
their stead. 

I mean, boys, the careless words on your tongues, 
the coarse pictures in your minds, the idle habit in 
your lives; I mean the cigarette and cigar, the oath, 



"LINCOLN SOLDIERS" 



the indifference to Sunday sanctities that prefers the 
woods or the golf field to the regular habit at church 
and its many kindred associations that will help you 
keep out the thistles and plant the flowers, that will 
make you clean men, happy citizens, whether you be 
rich or poor. 

I fear, girls, that I see better than you can the 
thistle-down now floating through the air around you 
that may take root in your hearts ; the love of display, 
the giddy relish for shallow companionship, the pas- 
sion for dress, the wastefulness of money, of time, 
and of talent that will take you away from the dear 
love of books, the high inspiration of usefulness, the 
gentle, simple sweetness of service. 

But I will trust you. I believe in you. I am sure 
that in one way or another you will overcome the 
thistles, or pluck them out of the heart even if they 
should get lodgment, and that flowers of your own 
and of others' planting will grow there. 

I am glad that you have found a new song to the 
old tune. May your class song inspire a new cam- 
paign in the old spirit, a campaign of peace, a war 
against war. May you so fight this bloodless battle 
that peace may indeed ''go marching on." 



II 



THE GREATEST GIFT 



j 



Stern daughter of the voice of God! 

O Duty! if that name thou love 

Who art a light to guide, a rod 

To check the erring, and reprove; 

Thou who art victory and law 

When empty terrors overawe; 

From vain temptations dost set free ; 

And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity! 

There are who ask not if thine eye 
Be on them; who, in love and truth, 
Where no misgiving is, rely 
Upon the genial sense of youth: 
Glad hearts! without reproach or blot; 
Who do thy work, and know it not; 
May joy be theirs while life shall last! 
And thou, if they should totter, teach them to 
stand fast! 

Serene will be our days and bright, 
And happy will our nature be. 
When love is an unerring light. 
And joy its own security. 
And blest are they who in the main 
This faith, even now, do entertain: 
Live in the spirit of this creed; 
Yet find that other strength, according to their 
need. 

—From Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty" 



XIX 



THE GREATEST GIFT 

The sense of duty is the greatest gift of God. — William 
Ellery Channing 

This text interests us, first, because it has been 
selected as the motto of the Confirmation Class of 
1903. It is always interesting to watch the move- 
ments of young minds. It is a pleasure to discover 
thoughtfulness in playful children, to find seriousness 
increasing the joys of youth. Nature has meant 
that the young should be very happy. It has sur- 
charged the beginning of life with energy; here there 
is vitality and to spare. It is natural for lambs to 
gambol, for colts to kick up their heels, for little dogs 
and kittens to frisk and run, and it is as natural 
for boys and girls to play. It is quite right that child- 
hood should be full of fun. I like to watch you at 
your sports. I stopped last week to see a boy of the 
Confirmation Class practice the high jump with the 
long pole with a half dozen associates in a vacant lot 
on the boulevard. The cross-bar was put up higher 
than the heads of the jumpers. I thought he could 
not vault over that; it looked dangerous. How he 
squared himself for the race! How he threw himself 
into the run! How confidently he planted his pole at 
the right place and at the right moment! Then, 
straining every nerve, up he rose. How gracefully he 

355 



356 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



cleared the bar and alighted on his feet. "Raise the 
bar another notch !" Again the run was made and the 
desperate venture taken. But that last inch was too 
much. Down came the cross-bar, pole, boy, and all, 
in a tumble on the sand. I was scared. I thought of 
broken bones and sprained ankles. But it was fun 
for the boys — most of all for the defeated bundle of 
boyhood that scratched himself out of the sand. He 
tried it again. This time he did it. It is splendid to 
be a boy — not to be afraid ; to have energy enough to 
throw one's self away up over the high cross-bar. It is 
splendid to have sound muscle, steady nerve, and 
strengthening bones. So splendid is it that a gray- 
beard like myself is tempted to say that health, with 
the buoyancy and courage that belong to it, is the very 
best gift of God, at least to youth. But this jump- 
ing boy was one of those who voted to take as the 
motto of the class the text that says, not health, youth, 
muscle, nerve, and the fun that goes therewith, but 
conscience, the sense of duty, is the best gift of God 
to man. And this class, from October to April, 
denied themselves the fun of their Friday afternoons, 
and absented themselves from the coasting, skating, 
tobogganing and snow-balling, all so delightful to 
childhood, in order that they might attend the Con- 
firmation Class where they would learn about the 
things of religion and of morals. They came to study 
the story of man's mind; the growth of the church; 
the hopes and fears of the soul; and particularly to 
learn of the great and good men who preferred to do 



THE GREATEST GIFT 



357 



hard things, who dared suffer for the truth and die 
for the right. 

One of these men was Wilham Ellery Channing, 
who gave the class its motto and me my text — "The 
sense of duty is the greatest gift of God." The next 
sentence amphfies the text. It reads, 'The idea of 
right is the primary and the highest revelation of 
God to the human mind, and all higher revelations are 
founded on and addressed to it. All mysteries of 
science and theology fade away before the grandeur 
of the simple perception of duty which dawns on the 
mind of the little child." 

Our next interest in the text, then, lies in the man 
who said it. William Ellery Channing was one of the 
great and good men we delighted to study. He was 
born at Newport, R. I., one hundred and twenty-three 
years ago — 1780. He too was a jolly boy. He loved 
to play and was good at a game. He was a good 
wrestler and loved to do the daring things. He was 
a fearless boy. I find no record of his jumping, but I 
do find it recorded that he loved to climb the ship- 
masts in the harbor, and that once at least he slipped 
down the ropes with dangerous rapidity. He wanted 
to go with some other boys to spend the night on 
board an old vessel that was said to be haunted. Mr. 
Chadwick, his last and most interesting biographer, 
suggests that the report was true, for the ship was 
probably haunted by rats. But I will not let Mr. 
Chadwick, though a good friend of mine, spoil a boy's 
story. Rats are spooky enough to try any boy's 



358 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



nerves when they run around in the dark, are they 
not? 

WilHam Ellery Channing was a good boy, though 
not a "goody" boy. There is a tradition of one fight 
in his boy Hfe, when he gave a good trouncing to a 
bully much bigger than himself, because he was impos- 
ing on a smaller boy. But his playmates called him 
"the peace-maker," and sometimes "the little min- 
ister." An old relative said he was "the most splen- 
did child she ever saw." Some of his associates 
mocked the young idealist because "he wanted better 
bread than could be made of wheat." But their 
teacher said to the mockers, "I wish in my heart you 
were like William Channing." 

He could say, "Thanks to my stars, I can say I 
never killed a bird; I would not crush the meanest 
insect that crawls upon the ground." One of the 
remembered days in his life was when the tragedy 
of a bird's nest occurred — when he found the little 
ones which he had fed killed and mutilated by some 
cruel hand. 

William never learned to swim, much to his 
regret, because he would not, like his comrades, dis- 
obey the home orders that forbade him the water. Of 
course this tender-hearted boy grew up to be 
a man with a great conscience. At college he loved 
to be alone. He read high books, and had such high 
dreams that at times the world seemed an inadequate 
place for him to live, and he wished he might die. 
Before he graduated from college his father died, and 



THE GREATEST GIFT 



359 



in order to help his widowed mother raise his little 
brothers and sisters, he went to Richmond, Virginia, 
as a tutor. Here he worked hard, lived poorly, slept in 
an outhouse, and wore inadequate clothing that he 
might help his mother the more. He loved the Vir- 
ginians because ''they talked and thought less about 
money than the prudent Yankees," but he hated 
slavery. He wrote, "The one object here which 
always depresses me is slavery. Language cannot 
express my detestation of it. Nature never made 
such a distinction nor established such a relation." 
He said, ''To describe it I should be obliged to show 
you every vice heightened by every meanness and 
added to every misery. The influence of slavery on 
the whites is almost as fatal as on the blacks them- 
selves." This was the man who became the great 
preacher of Boston, the inspirer of Ralph Waldo 
Emerson, the forerunner of Theodore Parker, the 
man who was "always young for liberty;" the pale, 
sick man upon whose words governors, college pro- 
fessors, and presidents hung, and in whom the poor, 
the sick, and the neglected of Boston found a true 
friend; the man who, among the Green Mountains of 
Vermont, could say with his dying breath, "I have 
received many messages from the spirit." 

This interest in the man who gave us the text 
makes us ask. Where do we find the text? Under 
what circumstances and in what connection did he 
say, "The sense of duty is the greatest gift of God"? 
Channing was the great prophet of the Unitarian 



360 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



faith. In 18 19, in Baltimore, in preaching the ordi- 
nation sermon of Jared Sparks, the man who after- 
ward wrote the most deHghtful books of history and 
the Hves of Benedict Arnold, Ethan Allen, Father 
Marquette, and George Washington, which so inter- 
est boys and girls, he preached the first of the four 
great sermons which mark the growth of orthodox 
Christianity through Unitarianism into the breadth 
of the universal faith that is the quest and the joy 
of our Confirmation Class studies. 

In 1837, eighteen years after Channing's great 
disturbing, mind-quickening, heart-enlarging sermon 
on "Unitarian Christianity," Ralph Waldo Emerson 
gave his Divinity School Address to the young min- 
isters at the Cambridge Divinity School, in which he 
sang the beautiful hymn of faith in and praise to the 
God that now reveals himself, as always, in the 
beauty of nature around us, in the life of the soul 
within. 

Four years after this, in 1841, Theodore Parker 
preached his sermon on "The Transient and the Per- 
manent in Christianity," in which he showed that 
there are some things in the New Testament more 
true than others; that God works through law, not 
through miracles; that we need not believe that Jesus 
could or would kill a fig tree by cursing it or that 
there were devils which he could drive into a herd of 
swine and drive the swine into the sea, because we 
believe with all our hearts in the Golden Rule and the 
Beatitudes. 



THE GREATEST GIFT 



361 



Then, forty-four years later, in 1885, William C. 
Gannett preached his sermon on 'The Faith of 
Ethics," in which he showed that the essential thing 
in religion is character; that the true test is the deed 
versus the creed; that duty is the measure of devout- 
ness; that every faith is measured by its faithfulness, 
and that whoever lives a faithful life, faithful to duty, 
faithful to head and heart, — be he Pagan, Christian 
or Jew, be he orthodox or liberal, Methodist or Pres- 
byterian — belongs to the one true church of God, the 
great Catholic Church of Humanity. 

The fundamental message of Channing, then, was 
this belief that men, all men, being the children of a 
good God, are themselves good, in essence if not good 
now, good in the making. One of his great sermons 
is entitled, "Honor Due to All Men." It is in this 
beautiful sermon that you found your text, "The sense 
of duty is the greatest gift of God." In this sermon 
he argues that the only way to make one a lover of 
man is to reveal to him something great and inter- 
esting in human nature. All men, all kinds of men, 
even the poor, tattered, ragged, drunken men, have 
in them something admirable; something that boys 
and girls can revere and that wise men and women 
must love. It has been said that "There is nothing 
great in nature but man, and nothing great in man 
but mind." But we will not say that, for nature is 
full of greatness outside of man. Her daisies and 
her roses, her torrents and her mountains, her forests 
and her stars, are all wonderful, all sublime. And the 



362 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



little child that can hold the daisy in its hand and 
reach out for the moon can enjoy something of this 
nature. And in man everything is wonderful. The 
splendid mechanism of the body, arms, legs, and eyes, 
muscle, nerve, and brain, all are. wonderful and all 
are admirable. A mind that can draw the lily, weigh 
the star and measure the mountain is wonderful, and 
the heart that pets the dog, that companions the horse, 
that nestles the babe, that makes men and women 
cling to one another, build homes and establish gov- 
ernments, is wonderful. The power that writes 
poetry and sings it to great tunes accompanied by 
noble organ tones, built in great churches, is all won- 
derful. 

But Channing tells us in this sermon on the 
"Honor Due to All Men," that greater than all these 
is "the power of discerning and doing the right, is the 
higher monitor which speaks in the name of God to 
the capacity of virtue, of excellence, the sense of 
duty, this is the greatest gift of God." 

And do you not, young as you are, know that this 
is true ? Does not every child know, what the philoso- 
pher cannot explain, that happiness, power, useful- 
ness, surely come only by doing right? The sense of 
ought first asks and then compels us to do what we 
do not want to do ; to do hard things ; to suffer for an 
idea and to die for a principle. 

Says Immanuel Kant, "Two things command my 
reverence: the starry heavens above and the sense of 
ought within." Of these two things, do you children 



THE GREATEST GIFT 



363 



not know that the "sense of ought" in the heart of a 
child is more wonderful, more sublime, than a great 
ball of blazing matter flying through space? For this 
sense of duty is that which makes of the child and the 
philosopher, the babe and the prophet, co-workers 
with God, helpers in the world. It is that which calls 
upon men to set things right, to keep things straight, 
to make things plumb, to keep the balance, to ''play 
fair" in the world. 

"The sense of duty is the greatest gift of God." 
Let me try to illustrate what needs no proving, make 
bright what we already know, thereby perhaps help- 
ing us to better love the text which we already believe, 
and, still better, to practice the motto we have already 
adopted. 

Over on the street-corner the other day I saw a 
little sparrow in great luck. It had found a beautiful 
straw, over a foot long, a clean, nice, strong straw, 
suitable to become a great timber in the little spar- 
row's home. To the little bird it was as big as an iron 
beam is to the builder of a great Chicago block. The 
sparrow looked at it from end to end. He jumped from 
one side to the other; he took hold of it to see if he 
could lift it. He shifted his position several times so 
as to get a good hold of it. At last he had it balanced ; 
he cleared the ground with it, but the wind twisted his 
little neck and the straw fell to the ground. He gave 
it up and dropped it. And still he needed that fine 
piece of timber for his house. And so he tried it once 
more; balanced it; braced his little body against the 



3^4 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



wind and ventured. He made his spring and rose 
with his heavy load to the ledge of the sign-board, 
above the first story, but he could not get it to the 
place where he was building his house, and bird and 
straw came down to earth again. But he was not dis- 
couraged; he tried once more, and this time he man- 
aged it. I could not follow him in his construction 
act. I am sure it was hard work to bend the straw, to 
fit it in, and brace it and cement it where it belonged, 
but I believe he succeeded. But when the straw house 
is finished, then come the eggs and the long brooding, 
the laborious feeding, the vigilant watching, days and 
nights of loyalty. What a foolish little bird! Why 
bother with straws and nests and little ones? Why 
not live and be happy, take the sunshine, gather seed 
for himself, take some comfort in the world, have 
some of the pleasures of life, instead of all the while 
doing hard things, all the while carrying risks, run- 
ning dangers, seeking to be burdened with care and 
responsibility? 

Why ? I cannot tell you why, except that in doing 
the hard things, in yielding to this — yes, I will call it 
the sense of duty — this groping for usefulness, this 
something that makes of the bird a nest-builder, a 
bird-feeder, it thereby becomes a creator with God, 
making the bird more than the straw, as the straw is 
more than the dust out of which it grew, and the dust 
which nourished the wheat more than the rocks out 
of which it was crumbled. 

So it is that this sense of duty which calls upon 



THE GREATEST GIFT 



365 



you and upon me, which guides you and guides me, 
which pushes you and pushes me to do the things we 
do not want to do, to stand in the strain, to Hft heavy 
burdens, to go without comforts, to seek weariness 
and not rest, to sweat and not sleep, is the greatest 
gift of God to us because it makes us creators with 
God, makers of something, and through this making 
we prove our divinity, we estabhsh our kinship with 
God, become indeed the children of God. 

It is not easy to keep this text in mind. You will 
often be reminded, even by those who ought to know 
better, that you will have to "take care of yourselves, 
for nobody else will;" that ''one is a fool who works 
too hard for others, for he will get no thanks for it." 
Many men and many forces are ready to teach you 
that money, position, style, beauty, good clothes, and 
many of them, nice houses, with the books, horses, and 
automobiles that go therewith are the things most 
worthy of your quest; that these are the things that 
make living worth while. Don't you trust them. 
Believe me, they are lying forces. All these things are 
desirable, but only when they come in the line of duty 
and when they are forever subordinated to duty. Be- 
lieve me, children, there is more costly and elegant 
agony in the world than you can possibly understand. 
Oh, there is such misery in luxury, such weariness in 
wealth, such dreariness in style when duty is ignored 
or slighted in order to secure them. 

On my recent trip to the Pacific Coast there was 
a bright little boy on the train, going with his parents 



366 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



to find a new home in the sunny land of CaHfornia. 
He had been to school but one summer, but it was an 
old-fashioned country school and he had learned many 
things. He knew all the states and their capitals; he 
could spell words of three and four syllables ; he could 
tell of the curious things that he was going to see in 
California — of the boats with glass bottoms that 
revealed sea-trees and sea-horses and the great fish 
and the curious coral that live at the bottom of the 
sea. He knew about the big orange orchards, the 
eucalyptus groves, and the hedges of calla lilies. He 
said he was going to Los Angeles, a fine big city. 
One day I asked him if he knew the meaning of that 
name. I told him that California was covered all over 
with such beautiful names as Los Angeles, Santa Ana, 
Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, San Francisco, San 
Diego, and Sacramento and that these names meant the 
City of Angels, the City of Saint Annfe, Saint Barbara, 
Saint Bernard, Saint Francis, Saint James, and the 
Place of Sacraments. The little boy stood with open 
eyes and ears; he was silent for a moment, and then 
with an awe in his voice he said, "I never heard any 
folks talk about these things; no one ever told me 
about that before." This was in the forenoon. Along 
toward supper time I again visited the tourist car 
where the little boy was traveling, and I found that 
he had filled the car with this new talk. They were 
ready to tell me what Thomas had found out — that 
he was going to the "City of Angels," and that the 
cities of California were named after good men and 



THE GREATEST GIFT 



367 



good women, because good priests, missionaries of the 
Christ, had taken possession of that country many, 
many years ago in the interest of God and humanity. 

Is not this the lesson we need to learn everywhere ? 
Let us talk and think of this world as fit for angels, 
of this country as the home of saints, for wherever, 
on farm or in the city, in the alley or on the boule- 
vard, the hard thing is done, the unpleasant task 
accomplished, right served and duty done, by girl or 
woman, by boy or man, there is saintliness, there is 
the greatest gift of God made manifest. When that 
is done the doer is Saint Anne, Saint Mary, Saint 
Margaret, Saint William, Saint John, or Saint James, 
no matter what the name. 

Following these missionaries have come the men 
of science and the men of trade, the missionaries of 
commerce. Southern California is being crowded 
with millionaires. They have established their River- 
sides and their Pomonas (The Place of Apples,) and 
many another new town in the new spirit, and what 
we sometimes boastingly call the "new man" and the 
"new woman" are there. 

Bless them all, but these names will mar the 
language and the towns, and will spoil the beautiful 
landscapes of California, if the dwellers forget to 
seek the saintliness which realizes that duty, not 
beauty, or pleasure, or plenty, is the greatest gift of 
God to man in California as in Boston, in America as 
in Judea. 

One more and last evidence that "The sense of 



368 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



duty is the greatest gift of God." Those who have it 
most are not only those who are most beloved in life 
but those who stay with us after death, those whom 
the ages revere, whose birthdays become national holi- 
days, whose centennials are more honored than their 
anniversaries, and whose millenaries are celebrated 
with still greater gratitude and reverence, because one 
hundred years are richer than one year, and ten hun- 
dred more glorious than one hundred. 

Recently I spent four days at the foot of what is 
called the highest mountain in the United States out- 
side of Alaska. The Indians called it Tacoma, the 
"nourishing breast." Vancouver, the English navi- 
gator, called it Rainier, after an English general. The 
city of Tacoma, near its base, loves to call it by its 
Indian name. The rival city of Seattle, thirty miles 
farther away, jealous of its power and attraction, 
insists on calling it Rainier. But it is the same moun- 
tain by whichever name it is called. All the time I 
was there this mountain was hidden in clouds. One day 
I saw its great knees, thighs and loins, wrapped in a 
white blanket. At another time I caught a glimpse of 
its topmost peak, glistening like a perfect "gem of 
purest ray serene" nearly fifteen thousand feet above 
the sea. I was told that it is always capped with 
white, and that when it reveals itself it is a spectacle 
of surpassing beauty. I did not see it but I believe all I 
heard, because the mountain was reflected in the faces 
of the citizens when they talked about it; it glistened 
in the eyes of those who attempted to describe it. I 



THE GREATEST GIFT 



369 



had to take it for granted, which I was glad to do, 
but those who loved it and continually studied it told 
me how every day in the year it catches the moisture 
of the sea, stores it in great glaciers that slowly slip 
down the mountain side to meet the softer, warmer 
air which converts the snow and ice into torrents, 
and how these torrents gather themselves into great 
streams, which now turn mighty mills and are about 
to be harnessed to great dynamos that will give light 
by night and transportation by day to the growing 
cities all along Puget Sound. They told me how in 
June they could climb through the great forests up 
into Paradise Valley where thousands of flowers are 
in bloom, and where one can stand and place one 
hand on the snow and pick daisies with the other. 
Thus the grim strength of the mighty mountain is 
softened into beauty, carpeted with luxury, and 
clothed upon with usefulness. 

Such is the quality and character of a man who 
through a long lifetime has realized that "The sense 
of duty is the greatest gift of God," and who has bent 
his energies, consecrated his days and nights, dedi- 
cated his years in and to the divine service of the 
right. Think of the great man whom the ages love 
and the generations honor. There are those who, like 
Mount Tacoma,have accumulated the moisture of the 
sea, conserved it on its high places and given it back 
again through the help of the kissing sun to the 
waiting earth, causing flowers to bloom, trees to 
grow, wheels to turn and civilization to be. 



370 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



Such were Channing and Emerson, Luther and St. 
Francis, Socrates and Moses, Buddha, and, most of 
all, the benign Man of Nazareth, the son of Mary 
and Joseph, the Christ of history, the Jesus of our 
love. Such in a greater or less degree were the Santa 
Anas, the Santa Barbaras, the San Diegos, and San 
Franciscos of Christian history. Thus each, in his 
own degree, children or men and women, young or 
old, weak or strong, in proportion as we seek the right 
and avoid the wrong, do the hard thing, welcome the 
unwelcome task, we shall know that duty is the best 
gift of God, we shall know it in the joy of our own 
souls, in the peace of conscience, and, what is better, 
in service rendered, we shall find our own lives justi- 
fied in the fuller lives of others. Thus alone can we 
know the peace that passeth understanding, the peace 
that abideth now and evermore. Amen. 



i 



A DARING FAITH 



THE SOUL'S ADVENTURE 



What fairer seal 

Shall I require to my authentic mission 

Than this fierce energy? — this instinct striving 

Because its nature is to strive? 



Be sure that God 
Ne'er dooms to waste the strength he deigns impart! 
Ask the gier-eagle why she stoops at once 
Into the vast and unexplored abyss, 
What full-grown power informs her from the first, 
Why she not marvels, strenuously heating 
The silent boundless regions of the sky! 
Be sure they sleep not whom God needs! 



'T is time 

New hopes should animate the world, new light 
Should dawn from new revealings to a race 
Weighed down so long, forgotten so long; thus shall 
The heaven reserved for us at last receive 
Creatures whom no unwonted splendors blind, 
But ardent to confront the unclouded blase, 
Whose beams not seldom blessed their pilgrimage, 
Not seldom glorified their life below. 



I go to prove my soul! 
I see my way as birds their trackless way. 
I shall arrive! what time, zvhat circuit first, 
I ask not: but unless God send his hail 
Or blinding fireballs, sleet or stifling snow. 
In some time, his good time, I shall arrive: 
He guides me and the bird. 

— From Browning's "Paracelsus" 



XX 



A DARING FAITH 

Let us have faith that right makes might. — Abraham 
Lincoln 

I want first to show that the text which the class 
has offered me for my sermon is found in a very great 
speech, was spoken by a very great man, and contains 
a very great truth. 

I cannot hope to give an adequate conception of 
how intensely men, women and children in the United 
States were interested in political issues in the winter 
of 1859-60, when every interest centered in the ques- 
tion of slavery. John Brown had been hung at 
Harper's Ferry late in the preceding autumn. Uncle 
Tom's Cabin had been a classic in the homes of the 
North and a terror in the homes of the South for 
seven years. 

Elijah Love joy had been martyred at Alton for 
publishing an abolitionist paper; his printing press 
had been thrown into the Mississippi River and the 
building burned twenty-two years before. At a meet- 
ing in Boston, called to protest against this martyr- 
dom, Wendell Phillips, a brilliant young lawyer, had 
made his maiden speech, and William Ellery Chan- 
ning, the saintly preacher of Boston, had for the first 
time taken his stand and been counted for liberty. 
Under this inspiration James Russell Lowell had 
written his 'Present Crisis" in which he said : 

373 



374 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, 
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or 
evil side. 

Theodore Parker had defied the Fugitive Slave Law 
and had helped to conceal and otherwise protect fugi- 
tive slaves from the "owners" who pursued them. In 
the South there was well-grounded fear, anxiety, and 
indignation. For this intense feeling at the North 
against slavery not only menaced the commercial 
prosperity of the southern people and threatened to 
rob them of their "property," but, what was harder to 
bear, impugned the honest motives of well-meaning 
men and women, charging with brutal propensities and 
inhuman conduct those who for the most part were 
really, many of them, sensitive, honest, religious citi- 
zens. They had inherited from the past an evil insti- 
tution which they did not create and from the 
entanglements of which they could not, as they 
thought, escape. 

Smarting with this insecurity and sense of wrong, 
the people of the South turned to the Democratic 
party for protection and vindication, on the theory 
that Democracy afforded the largest amount of per- 
sonal liberty, the least governmental interference. 
They asked to be "let alone." In the North a new 
party which called itself "Republican" undertook to 
organize the growing sense of justice and legalize 
the safeguards of freedom. This party said in effect: 
"This evil must not grow ; to it no new territory must 
be granted." And so, back of the great moral ques- 



A DARING FAITH 



375 



tion, "Is it right to own slaves?" lay the political 
questions, ''Is it right to interfere with those who do 
own slaves?" ''Is it a national duty to circumscribe 
its boundaries and prevent its extension?" Hence 
"The Missouri Compromise," "Squatter Sovereignty," 
"Mason and Dixon's Line," "States' Rights," 
"Dough-faces," "Mud-sills," "Black Republicans," 
and "Secession," were the familiar words to be seen 
on the front page of every newspaper; to be heard 
wherever men and women met to talk; to be discus- 
sed everywhere on the platform and in the pulpit. 

In the autumn of 1858 Stephen A. Douglas and 
Abraham Lincoln, two popular lawyers in the state of 
Illinois, had met in a series of debates to discuss these 
great questions. Both of these men aspired to a seat 
in the L^nited States Senate. But what began as a 
battle between candidates promptly outgrew such 
limitation and became a great discussion of prin- 
ciples, the greatest public debate of a great moral 
question on political platforms the world has ever 
known. 

One of these men was eastern-born and college- 
bred, already successful, wealthy, fashionable, a 
gifted judge widely known. The other was a child of 
the backwoods; his tongue knew no speech but Eng- 
lish, and that was spoken with a quaint accent. He 
was an awkward, unschooled child of the \\^est. 
"Backwoodsman," "raftsman," "rail-splitter," were 
the familiar words already used concerning him — 
spoken, now in derision, and now in loving admira- 



376 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



tion. The Illinois farmers who took off their hats 
and bowed respectfully to "Judge Douglas" slapped 
his opponent on the shoulder as they greeted "Abe 
Lincoln," whom they had already learned to love and 
to call ''Honest Abe." But he also had a reputation 
on the circuit; he was a power in Illinois; he had 
served one term in Congress, and his oldest boy was 
in Harvard College. 

The fame of the great debate had traveled east- 
ward, and some young men in Henry Ward Beecher's 
church in Brooklyn ventured to invite the curious 
Westerner, the Illinois rail-splitter, to deliver a lec- 
ture before them. It was a challenge that flattered 
and frightened the self-distrusting lawyer of the Illi- 
nois prairie, but, on condition that he might speak on 
a political subject, he accepted, and the date was fixed 
for February 27, i860. Some months were to inter- 
vene between the acceptance and the deliverance, and 
the untried giant, like a mighty Samson, bent him- 
self to the task. The resources of the libraries within 
his reach were exhausted; he knocked the dust from 
old pamphlets, studied original documents, and turned 
his face eastward with fear and trembling. On his 
arrival in New York he was still further alarmed 
when he found that the place of speaking had been 
transferred from Plymouth Church in Brooklyn to 
the hall of the Cooper Union in New York in order to 
accommodate the throng that was to meet him. He 
arrived two days ahead of time; entertainment was 
offered him at the home of an eminent citizen, but he 



A DARING FAITH 



377 



declined; he must work on his lecture, which he 
feared would be a disappointment and a failure. He 
was anxious lest the young men who had assumed the 
risk should lose money on the venture. 

At last the terrible hour arrived, and he found 
himself confronted by an audience that filled the great 
hall to overflowing. It was an audience of cultured 
men and women, such as had not been convened in 
New York City, the papers said, since the days of 
Clay and Webster. William Cullen Bryant, the ven- 
erable poet and editor, presided, and men whose 
names were national household words sat on the plat- 
form. Much has been made by biographers of the 
awkward figure, the ill-fiting and wrinkled garments 
of the speaker. Some of the young men on the com- 
mittee confessed they felt dismayed when first they 
saw the lecturer. They were ashamed of his rustic 
appearance and wished they might avoid the humilia- 
tion of appearing with him on the platform in the 
presence of such a polite and fashionable audience. 
He himself confessed to his old law partner and sub- 
sequent biographer, "Billy" Herndon, that for once 
he was greatly abashed over his personal appearance. 
He knew that the new suit of clothes which he bought 
in Chicago on his way east had become badly wrinkled 
in his valise; the collar of his coat would not stay 
down, and this consciousness of the difiference between 
his clothes and the neatly fitting suits of the chairman 
and the other gentlemen on the platform disturbed 
him as he began to speak. 



378 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



It is a grateful office that I perform in introducing to you. 
an eminent citizen of the West, hitherto known to you only by 
reputation, 

was Mr. Bryant's introduction. Next day in his 
paper, the Evening Post, ]\Ir. Bryant said : 

For the publication of such words of weight and wisdom 
as those of Mr, Lincoln, the pages of this journal are indefi- 
nitely elastic. 

And Horace Greeley in the New York Tribune said : 

He is one of nature's orators. No man ever before made 
such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience. 

A Connecticut minister was reported by the Nezv 
York Tribune as saying to j\Ir. Lincoln next day: 

Your speech was the most remarkable I ever heard 

Your illustrations were romance and pathos, fun and logic, all 
welded together. 

Says another, as quoted in Noah Brooks's Life: 

When Lincoln rose to speak, I was greatly disappointed. 
He was tall, tall — oh, how tall, and so angular and awkward 
that I had, for an instant, a feeling of pity for so ungainly a 
man. His clothes were black and ill-fitting, badh* wrinkled, as 
if they had been jammed carelessly into a small trunk. His 
bushy head, with the stiff black hair thrown back, was balanced 
on a long and lean head-stalk, and when he raised his hands in an 
opening gesture, I noticed that they were ver\^ large. He began 
in a low tone of voice as if he were used to speaking out-doors, 
and was afraid of speaking too loud. I said to myself : '"Old 
fellow, you won't do; it's all very well for the wild West, but 
this will never go down in New York" But pretty soon he 
began to get into his subject; he straightened up, made regular 
and graceful gestures; his face lighted as with an inward fire; 
the whole man was transfigured. I forgot his clothes,, his 
personal appearance, and his individual peculiarities. Presently, 



A DARING FAITH 



379 



forgetting myself, I was on my feet with the rest, yelhng like 
a wild Indian, cheering this wonderful man. In the close parts 
of his arguments you could hear the gentle sizzling of the gas- 
burners. When he reached a climax, the thunders of applause 
were terrific. It was a great speech. When I came out of the 
hall, my face aglow with excitement and my frame all a-quiver, 
a friend, with his eyes aglow, asked me what I thought of Abe 
Lincoln, the rail-splitter. I said: "He's the greatest man since 
St. Paul." And I think so yet. 

Said Henry AI. Field, one of New York's great 
citizens, whom the nation honored: 

What manner of man is this lawyer from the West who has 
set forth these truths as we have never had them before? 

Forty years after, Hon. Joseph M. Choate, then 
Ambassador to Great Britain, described his impres- 
sions of the occasion to a great audience in Edin- 
burgh. He said: 

The impression left on my mind is ineffaceable He 

appeared in every sense of the word like one of the plain people 
among whom he loved to be counted. At first sight there was 
nothing impressive or imposing about him, except that his great 
stature singled him out from the crowd; his clothes hung awk- 
wardly on his giant frame, his face was of a dark pallor, without 
the slightest tinge of color; his seamed and rugged features 
bore the furrows of hardship and struggle; his deep- set eyes 
looked sad and anxious; his countenance in repose gave little 
evidence of that brain-power which had raised him from the 
lowest to the highest station among his countrymen. As he 
talked to me before the meeting he seemed ill at ease, with that 
sort of apprehension which a young man might feel before 
presenting himself to a new and strange audience whose critical 
disposition he dreaded 

He was equal to the occasion. When he spoke he was 



38o 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



transformed; his eye kindled, his voice rang, his face shone 
and seemed to light up the whole assembly. For an hour and a 
half he held his audience in the hollow of his hand. His style 
of speech and manner of delivery were severely simple. What 
Lowell called "the grand simphcities of the Bible," with which he 
was so familiar, were reflected in his discourse. With no attempt 
at ornament or rhetoric, without parade or pretence, he spoke 

straight to the point It was marvelous to see how this 

untutored man, by mere self -discipline and the chastening of his 
own spirit, had outgrown all meretricious arts, and found his 
way to the grandeur and strength of absolute simplicity, 

Lincoln did not underestimate his audience, and 
he appreciated the significance of his theme. Next 
morning the lecture was printed in full in four of the 
New York dailies, and in due time thousands and tens 
of thousands of copies were distributed in pamphlet 
form, the editorial committee stating in their preface 
that it had taken them weeks to verify some of the 
statements which had seemed to fall so easily from his 
inspired lips. But the investigation justified the state- 
ments. He had spoken carefully and had spoken the 
truth. He had studied the relation of slavery to the 
history of the United States from the beginning to 
that time, and had forecast its future. He had made 
what will probably stand as the greatest speech of his 
life; he had brought history, fact, logic, poetry, con- 
science, all to the mighty climax in which we found 
our text embedded : 

Let us not be slandered from our duty by false accusations 
against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to 
the government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have 



A DARIXG FAITH 



faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end 
do our duty as we understand it. 

I think I have said enough to prove my first point, 
that our text is found in a very great speech. Judged 
by the painstaking labor, the careful research and 
scholarly tise of historic material, it was undoubtedly 
the greatest speech Lincoln ever made; judged by its 
results also, it must be ranked as probably his greatest 
speech. It changed Abraham Lincoln of the A\'est to 
Abraham Lincoln of the nation; it made him Presi- 
dent. As one of his biographers said: '''It came near 
being an inaugural address." 

I need take little time in establishing my second 
point, that the text was spoken by a very great man. 
Every year adds to the already extensive Lincoln 
literature: every year adds to his world-wide fame, 
pushing his name into the dark and far corners of the 
world. "Abraham Lincoln'' has become a household 
word in the cabin and in the palace. Italy. Russia, 
and the far-off islands of the seas love him; peasants 
sing his praises : philosophers quote his words, and 
patriots grow more noble in thinking of him. 

AA'ithout further delay, then, let us consider my 
third proposition, that the text contains a very great 
truth — "Let us have faith that right makes might." 
Right is might, because right is of God and not of 
man. The perpendicular cokmm stands because the 
laws of gravitation hold it in place. Tilt your column, 
and it falls because nature lets go of it; or rather, 
nature pulls it down. The properly constructed arch 



382 LOVE AND LOYALTY 



holds the tower up; the more the weight the more 
secure it stands, because the arch is made according 
to the principles of mathematics. It is as firm as the 
multiplication table. Introduce a false element into 
the arch, let the circle deviate from rightness, and the 
arch falls by its own weight. You have tried to crush 
an egg between your hands. If you bring the press- 
ure to bear at the ends, you will fail ; turn it the other 
way and press on the sides, and ''brittle as an egg- 
shell" is verified in your hands. So powerful is right 
because it is a part of the construction of the uni- 
verse. It is ordained by the same power that has 
fixed the laws of nature. The laws of right are as 
fixed, sure, and inevitable as the laws which boil water 
at a high temperature and freeze it at a low tempera- 
ture ; as the laws which make water run down hill and 
steam to rise in the air. 

Right makes might. History is simply a verifica- 
tion of it. What has become of the great powers, the 
mighty cities, the dreaded conquerors, that you read 
of in your books? Where are Nineveh and Babylon? 
Where are Alexandria and the crowding cities that 
once made the shores of the Mediterranean more 
populous and more commercial than the shores of 
Lake Michigan now are? They were mighty; they 
were populous; they were rich; they were terrible. 
Xerxes, Alexander, the haughty Pharaohs, and the 
bloody Caesars — they had all the strengths but one 
necessary to perpetuity, to fame, and the glory that 
fades not, and that was the strength of right. The, 



A DARING FAITH 



.383 



names of those far-off merchants, presidents, and 
mayors, the bankers and manufacturers, are lost, and 
their work and possessions are forgotten, save a few 
antiquities, broken rehcs, scattered fragments, that are 
left to tell us how the mighty have fallen. They had 
not the might of the right. 

Over against the names that are forgotten or 
remembered only in pity or contempt, put the name 
of a far-off prince who renounced the glory of a court, 
became a beggar for truth's sake. The latter suggests 
the devotions and gratitudes, the aspirations and the 
ideals, of five hundred and more millions of men, for 
it is the name of Buddha, the pitiful, the name of 
him who taught men to be kind, merciful, and for- 
giving. 

Over against the name of Alexander, who made 
the banners of Macedonia terrible, write the name of 
Socrates, who walked barefooted in the snow as a 
private soldier in the Grecian army. His father was 
a stone-cutter; his mother was a nurse. He spent his 
time in talking with the youths in the market place; 
he was put to death because of his impiety. But his 
impiety represented his love for truth, his devotion to 
right, and after twenty-four centuries his name is the 
greatest name in Grecian lore. His was the migiit of 
the right. 

The Bible of Christendom, the most sacred of books, 
the textbook of the higher life, contains in the main 
the words of humble men — shepherds, vine-dressers, 
scribes, and fishermen — but they spoke the truth, and 



3^4 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



their words survive pyramids and overlay dynasties. 
Jeremiah in exile, Paul in prison, Jesus on the cross — 
these represent the mighty ones of history, and their 
might lay in the right which they championed. 

But we need no better illustration of my third 
point than that offered in the first and second parts of 
my sermon. I have said that our text is taken from 
a great speech. Why great? Those who went 
expecting to be swayed by some quaint oratory 
called "western" were disappointed; those who went 
expecting to be amused by the humor of the ''sad 
man of the Sangamon," or to be aroused by brilliant 
rhetoric or impassioned zeal, were mistaken. They 
heard instead close reasoning, careful analysis of 
history, kind words for enemies, earnest, sober appeal 
to friends. The Cooper Union lecture was great 
because it was unanswerable; it was true, and conse- 
quently it was powerful; it was an appeal to the 
right, and consequently it was mighty. 

As with the address, so with the man. At that 
time nobody feared Abraham Lincoln. The friends 
of his opponents were almost ashamed to ask the 
accomplished Judge Douglas, the courteous college 
graduate, the wealthy land-owner, who went about 
in his private car, to stoop to answer this rustic with- 
out polish and without position ; a rail-splitter, a county 
surveyor, a country postmaster, and at his largest, only 
a congressman defeated for re-election, and a country 
lawyer. But because Abraham Lincoln saw the right 
and dared stand for it, because he declared the truth 



A DARING FAITH 



and stood up to be counted for it, he became the 
mighty, and there is but one name in the honor-roll 
of the United States to dispute with him the glory of 
being the "foremost American." We will not make 
rivals of Washington and Lincoln; we will rejoice 
rather that both of them have the might that belongs 
to the right. They share the affections of school chil- 
dren and philosophers, black and white, rich and 
poor, because they stood for the right. 

But we need not appeal either to history or to 
biography. Happily, the stories of Lincoln, Wash- 
ton, Socrates, Buddha, Paul, Jeremiah, and Jesus are 
so familiar to us all that we cannot help thinking of 
them when we think of our text, "Right makes 
might." 

But if we had never heard of any of these, there 
is that within us which testifies to the beautiful truth 
that right makes might. The little child that respects 
the wish, follows the teaching, obeys the behest of 
those whom God and man have placed over him — 
teacher, father, and mother — the child that has kept 
faith with his parents and with his conscience, who 
has said "No" when a "Yes" seemed so much easier 
and so much pleasanter, is the child that is not 
ashamed to look you in the eye; who is not afraid to 
meet father or mother, and who is not alarmed when 
summoned into the presence of teacher or friend. 
The honest man is not afraid of the policeman. The 
true workman has no occasion to evade the boss. 
Right alone gives the might that is lasting; the might 



3^6 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



that brings the pleasure that lasts and the peace that 
abides. 

Emerson closes his searching essay on '''Courage"' 
— an essay which every boy and girl should read 
early in life and reread on every occasion of tempta- 
tion, at every crisis where cowardice beckons — with 
a poem-story, the ''Ballad of George Xidiver," the 
California hunter who, with his Indian boy compan- 
ion, found himself confronted in a mountain gorge 
by two grizzly bears which 

Rushed at them unawares 
Right down the narrow dell. 

The hunter with his one ball saved the fleeing boy 
from the bear that pursued him, then unarmed turned 
to met face to face the other beast: 

I say unarmed he stood, 

Against those frightful paws 
The rifle butt, or club of wood, 

Could stand no more than straws. 

George Nidiver stood still 

And looked him in the face; 
The wild beast stopped amazed, 

Then came with slackening pace. 

Still firm the hunter stood, 

Although his heart beat high; 
Again the creature stopped, 

And gazed with wondering eye. 

The hunter met his gaze 

Xor yet an inch gave way; 
The bear turned slowly round, 

And slowly moved away. 



A DARING FAITH 



387 



What thoughts were in his mind 

It would be hard to spell ; 
What thoughts were in George Nidiver 

I rather guess than tell. 

Be sure that rifle's aim, 

Swift choice of generous part, 
Showed in its passing gleam 

The depths of a brave heart. 

This poem indicates the might that goes with the 
right — the right that seeks the safety of others 
rather than its own : the right that puts the pleasure 
of others above one's own ; that finds companionship 
on the road of self-denial, and comfort in ser\'ice. 

Robert Browning tells the story of the "Threaten- 
ing Tyrant'' who used all his ingenuity to insult, to 
degrade, to frighten, to crush, a subject. But the 
man 

Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed, 

and lo ! it was the tyrant who was afraid ; he with all 
his armies and his might trembled, while the helpless, 
friendless, unarmed victim ''stood erect in the strength 
of God." What had he to fear? ''Strike if you will, 
but hear.'' said Themistocles to Eurybiades. This is 
always the conquering word of the man who stands 
in the right. 

Oh, my young friends, be not too anxious for 
"company," too solicitous for "good society," too 
anxious lest you be counted out from something that 
is going on. in too great a hurry to fence yourselves 
off in sects, parties, clubs, cliques, and coteries, fra- 



388 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



ternities and sororities, that you may have more good 
times. Think more often of the saying of Frederick 
Douglass, the black man and the chattel, "One with 
God is in the majority !" Think of the time that came 
to that black man when, honored in two continents, 
respected by the noble, a leader of the excellent and in 
the interest of excellence, he went to see his bed-rid- 
den, pitiable, degenerate old master who, in his humili- 
ation and his shame, begged the privilege of shaking 
hands with his former slave, knowing that the black 
slave towered above the white master in all that goes 
to make the might that is desirable and permanent. 

My young friends, we have communed together 
over high things and are not afraid of sacred words. 
Our text deserves the help of the noblest words that 
human speech can utter. Right makes might because 
right is another name for God, and to have faith in 
the right is to have faith in things eternal; faith in 
the power that holds the worlds together; the power 
that makes mathematics exact and the multiplication 
table permanent; the power that makes love forever 
fovely and hate forever hateful. That is most right 
that is most God-like; that is most just that gives the 
widest justice to all. He is most powerful who is in 
sympathy with and has companionship for the widest 
range of life. 

On the Sunday following the lecture at the 
Cooper Union, when all the country was pondering 
over the words of wisdom there spoken, a stranger 
appeared at the Mission Sunday School at Five 



A DARING FAITH 



389 



Points, then the slum center of New York, the home 
of the miserable and the degraded. He seemed so 
much interested, his face beamed with so much kind- 
liness, that the superintendent approached and asked 
him if he would like to say something to the poor 
little boys and girls there gathered, the ragged 
urchins of the alleys. The strange, curious man ac- 
cepted, but even the gamins soon stopped laughing. 
They were charmed by his voice, touched by his 
tenderness, and when he was about to stop, apologiz- 
ing for the intrusion, the little ragged children cried 
"Go on! Go on! Please go on!" And when at 
last the stranger stopped, there was an awed silence 
throughout the crowded room. Said the superin- 
tendent as the stranger passed out, "Please, sir, may 
I know your name?" "I am Abraham Lincoln, of 
Illinois," was the reply. 

The tender heart and the true conscience that on 
Friday night thrilled poets and statesmen and charmed 
cultured ladies and gentlemen, on Sunday morning 
held spell-bound the boys and girls of the slums, the 
children of the miserable. 

In the dark days of the horrible war, when asked 
by the superintendent of the Christian Mission to pre- 
side at a meeting to be held in Washington, he 
declined for what he called "sufficient reason," but he 
wrote : 

Whatever shall tend to turn our thoughts from the unrea- 
soning and uncharitable passions, prejudices, and jealousies inci- 
dent to a great national trouble such as ours, and to fix them on 



390 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



the vast and long-enduring consequences, for weal or for woe, 
which are to result from the struggle, and especially to 
strengthen our reliance on the Supreme Being for the final 
triumph of the right, can not but be well for us all. 

In one of his messages to Congress he said : 
We cannot escape history; no personal significance or insig- 
nificance can spare one or another of us. The very trial 
through which we pass will hold us down, in honor or dishonor, 

to the latest generation We shall nobly save or meanly 

lose the best hope of earth The way is plain, peaceful, 

generous, just, — a way which, if followed, the world will for- 
ever applaud and God must forever bless. 

It was a dark and chilly day in February when he 
left his Springfield home for the last time as he was 
about to take up the work of President. From the 
platform of the rear car he spoke to his old friends 
and neighbors. He there revealed his devout heart 
and his religious spirit. He spoke of the "task more 
difficult than that which devolved on Washington," 
and his belief that the Almighty arm that protected 
Washington would support him and that he should 
succeed. He said: 

Let us pray that the God of our fathers may not forsake 
us. To him I commend you all. With equal sincerity and 
faith, I ask you to invoke his wisdom and goodness for me. 

It is this faith in God, which is faith in goodness 
and faith in right, that enabled him to "put his foot 
down firm," and which made him such a worthy 
model, such an inspiring leader. 

Your motto is as applicable to school children as 
to senators; it is as true in the nursery as it is in 



A DARING FAITH 



Congress ; it applies to the playground and the class- 
room as it does to the church and the university. 

You and I, my children, have found much pleas- 
ure in the legends of the monks and in the mediaeval 
lore of the church. Let the fancy of some pious 
monk of the long ago help us to apply the high maxim 
of the martyred President. A rustic, hoping to en- 
courage the activities of his bees, placed a bit of com- 
munion bread — the body of the Christ as he thought 
— in the hive, whereupon the little bees did homage 
to the sacred presence and proceeded with curious art 
to build a little waxen church to shelter the sacred 
crumb. They reared its columns and shaped its altars 
into wondrous beauty. But when the sordid rustic 
came, hoping to gather his added stock of honey, the 
bees set upon him and he was glad to escape with 
his life. But when a holy priest approached, the 
little bees rose out of the hive and soared above him, 
making sweet and curious melody; and the priest 
took the noble structure, the little church of the bees, 
and placed it upon the high altar of the cathedral, 
and all the comimunicants in the countrv^ around grew 
more diligent in their ser\-ice, more simple in their 
faith, stronger in the trust that right makes might, 
when they looked upon it. 

We may at least simulate the little bee, and, weak 
and small though we may be, who knows how beauti- 
ful the altar we may rear over this sacred crumb, the 
communion bread, representing the blood and body 



392 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



of one of earth's martyrs, one of history's saviors and 
God's children? 

"Let us have faith that ri^ht makes might," and 
in that faith let us go forth to live, to serve, — not the 
few, but the many; to rejoice, not in the pride of 
aristocracy, but in the humility of democracy; not in 
the service of self, but in the service of others. 



i 



SECRET SPRINGS 



Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? 

And who shall stand in his holy place? 

He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; 

Who hath not lifted up his soul unto falsehood, 

And hath not sworn deceitfully. 

He shall receive a blessing from the Lord, 

And righteousness from the God of his salvation. 

—Psalm 24:3-5 



XXI 



SECRET SPRINGS 

Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the 
issues of life. — Proverbs 4 : 23 

The Bible is full of heart texts. The heart was 
a favorite figure of the Hebrew writers. 

Create in me a new heart, O God, and renew a right spirit 
within me. 

Let mine heart be sound in thy statutes. 

Let the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, 
O Lord. 

The fool hath said in his heart. There is no God. 
These are some of the Psalmist's texts. 

Why doth thine heart carry thee away? 
says the writer of Job. 

My son give me thy heart. 

Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the 
issues of life, 

says the Book of Proverbs. 

I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the 
wicked, 

said the writer of Ecclesiastes. 

"Blessed are the pure in heart/' said Jesus; while 
Paul exclaims, ''With the heart man believeth unto 
righteousness;" and he further speaks of ''the veiled 
and unveiled heart of man." 

Now the people of Israel were not peculiarly emo- 
tional. Indeed, the prophets are suspected, wrong- 

395 



396 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



fully perhaps, of not doing justice to the love side of 
religion. So "heart," in the Bible sense, must have a 
broader meaning than that given to it in modern 
speech — the home of the affections, the organ 
of love. The "heart" in the Bible sense is the source 
of thought as well as of feeling; the fountain of 
action as well as of love. It is the core of being, the 
hidden citadel out of which come, unbidden and often- 
times uncontrollable, thoughts, feelings, actions. These 
writers antedate the modern metaphysics, convenient 
but treacherous, which divides the soul into parts or 
compartments like a modern post-office, putting the 
will into one, the heart into another, and the mind 
into still another ; assuming that the power of thought 
and the power of love and the power of action repre- 
sent distinct elements, and occupy separate compart- 
ments of the soul. The ancient Hebrews apprehended 
the profounder truth that the soul is one and that this 
unity is concerned in every act. According to this 
thought, the heart is the sum total of one's spiritual 
possessions; it is the subterranean source of the foun- 
tain we call "life;" it is a central citadel of being. 

When wisdom pleads with the young man for his 
heart, it asks him for the consecration of all his ener- 
gies. Our text pleads with the youth to "keep the 
heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of 
life." And so the word "heart" here means what we 
mean by "affection" and more; what we mean by 
"intellect" and more; what we call the "will" and 
more. It means all these. It would be well for us 



SECRET SPRINGS 



397 



in these days of science if we would profit by the 
insight of the old Hebrew and remember that the 
religion of the heart means something more than 
emotions, however noble. Love languishes without 
ideas. Ideas are to be distrusted when not clarified 
by love. 

When the prophet used the word "heart," I think 
he meant something very nearly like what we mean 
when we say ''character." The "I do believe" of the 
creeds, the largest conclusions of philosophy, the 
greatest doctrines, rattle like dry peas in a pod in the 
more capacious chambers of the devout heart. The 
heart is more than the intellect, and so the rites, sacra- 
ments and ceremonies may be important helps. But 
the religious heart knows that these represent but a 
small section of the holy life. The heart says, "Mis- 
take not means for ends. Forms are beautiful, but 
religion is larger than any or all forms." 

And again, when the advocate of the religion of 
emotion breaks into his "Hallelujahs" and ecstatic 
"Amens," the "heart" protests against this unthink- 
ing rhapsody; it realizes that unreasoning love is 
always in danger of becoming unlovely. A religion of 
the heart that ignores the religion of the head weak- 
ens the heart. The central forces of life cannot be 
satisfied with shouting; rhapsody is not an excuse 
for lack of reason. 

The religion of the heart is something larger 
even than "duty." Life is more than action; more 
than the courage to do; more than high achievement. 



398 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



Duty must be changed into joy, and effort must rise 
into serenity. The great soul achieves much, but it 
halos the highest achievement with an atmosphere 
of trust, of peace, and serenity. The monks of the 
olden time tortured the flesh ; their religion called for 
severe sacrifices. The religion of the heart protests 
and says, "Cheerless duty is undutiful. Grim integ- 
rity represents a spiritual defaulter." The religion 
of the heart represents man in his wholeness. It 
teaches him to love what is fair with an ardor that 
requires all the strength of reason to discover and 
all the power of the will to interpret. 

"Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it 
are the issues of life." This text, rightly under- 
stood, asks for something more than high passions 
and noble sentiment, for unenlightened passion ends 
in passionless lives. The religion of the heart is 
related to the religion of creed, of form, of emotion, 
of conduct, not as a part opposed to a part, but as 
the whole related to a part. To find the beautiful, 
the good, the true, requires all the resources of our 
nature. True religion is the all-of-man permeated 
through and through with an all pervading sense of 
God. This great heart is interpreted by Browning's 
lines in Saul: 

How good is man's life, the mere living! How fit to employ- 
All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy. 

The pure heart, the sound core, the strong spirit, 
finding good within, dares look the universe in the 
face, recognizing therein the features of the Divine. 



SECRET SPRINGS 



399 



Feeling this pulsing power within, the heart dis- 
covers the Omnipotent everywhere; having faith in 
the least things one dares not distrust the greatest, 
and so the soul continues to sing: 

Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift, 
That I doubt my own love can compete with it? 

When, in the language of my text, I plead that 
the heart be kept with all diligence, I plead for 
soundness at the core. The love between man and 
woman not founded in thought and justified by 
judgment, will bring disappointment and defeat; 
on the other hand, no thinker can travel far on any 
lines of the universe unless he be also a lover. A 
good thinker must be a loving spirit. John Stuart 
Mill, one of the great thinkers of his age, marked a 
new epoch in his life when he discovered that the 
page before him was moistened by tears that fell in 
sympathy with the sorrows of another, though the 
sorrowing one was but a character in the pages of a 
novel. That service is irksome to the laborer and 
unacceptable to the employer which is not illumi- 
nated by thought and love. 

"Keep thy heart with all diligence." You cannot 
do it, unless you keep your head also; and both 
thought and feeling prove unprofitable and unreli- 
able if they are not harnessed to action, if they do 
not lead to conduct. Acts are the counters that repre- 
sent the currency deposited in the bank of character. 
The heart, then, represents accumulations as wxU as 
inheritance; the great gift bestowed at birth aug- 



400 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



mented by the accumulated experience, the acquired 
aptitudes, the interest on the capital invested. The 
effort and thought of your fore-elders plus the effort, 
thought, and love of your own lives, represent your 
heart capital. The father's struggles underlie the 
daughter's peace. The mother's tears make pos- 
sible the son's smiles. Whatever, then, increases the 
dimensions of your being, adds to your capacity of 
enjoyment, enlarges your vision, or deepens your love, 
preserves and enriches your heart. 

After the great Chicago fire in 1871 the students 
of Cornell, wishing to do something to renew the 
life of the stricken city and to encourage the noble 
men and women who were demonstrating that spirit 
was more powerful than any fire that can burn up 
material things, offered the great blacksmith- 
preacher, Robert CoUyer, a thousand dollars for a 
horseshoe made by his own hand. The now vener- 
able Mr. Collyer tells how he went into a friend's 
smithy on the North Side, with misgivings. For 
twenty years he had been a stranger to the anvil and 
he was afraid that his hand had lost its cunning. 
But the nerves and muscles had preserved their train- 
ing; the eye had not lost its commanding accuracy. 
The shoe was readily formed, and the blacksmith 
neighbor in whose smithy it was forged pronounced 
it good. The name was stamped into the iron, and a 
notary witnessed to the genuineness of the article. 
In due time the Cornell boys sent their check for a 
thousand dollars, and that horseshoe is now one of the 



SECRET SPRINGS 



coveted treasures of the Cornell Museum. The 
horseshoe became so famous that in due time it led 
to bringing across the sea the little old bell that used 
to hang over the Yorkshire shop and summon the 
'prentice boy, ''Bobbie Collyer," to his tasks. And 
now the bell summons hundreds of Ithaca students to 
their shop-work day by day, reminding them of the 
poetry of the crafts, the culture that lies in skilled 
hands, and the dignity and fraternity of labor. Not 
every man who can turn a horseshoe can sell the 
same to university boys for a thousand dollars, but 
every man who can make a good horseshoe is in 
possession of a power that has cost more than a 
thousand dollars and is worth immeasurably more 
than the cost; for this trained skill is an "issue" that 
proves the well- furnished heart. 

''Keep thy heart with all diligence," said the old 
Hebrew. Jesus called this very heart-keeping the 
"Gospel" — the good news. In modern phrase we 
call this heart-keeping "character," which, as Dr. 
Bartol said, is the "stone that cuts all other stones," 
the diamond, the most useful as well as the most 
beautiful of gems. 

Robert Collyer's horseshoe is not a solitary or 
exceptional product. See the pioneer on Dakota's 
bleak prairie, building a house into which he is soon 
to bring a blushing bride; see half-naked men 
moving to and fro in front of the various furnaces 
filled with iron as white and as fluid as milk; see 
grimy miners turning the creaking winch at the 



402 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



mouth of the murky coal pit; see the colored men in 
Mississippi, singing while they plant and cultivate 
the cotton; see the shepherds of Arizona, in grim 
seriousness guarding their flocks from the depreda- 
tions of wolves, with no time to be jolly over a cap- 
tured wolf, dead or alive; see the quarrymen wrest- 
ling with granite blocks, the builder with bird-like 
poise walking the dizzy beam above; see the farmer 
tending his cattle, his children feeding the chickens, 
his wife watching her babes. In all these you see a 
sacramental offering. In all this work there is a pre- 
cipitation of heart. All this output comes out of the 
unfathomable depths of being that give individuality 
and personality. Out of these offerings little ones 
are fed, clothed, and schooled. The grimy sweat of 
coarsest labor is related to the sacrificial drops of 
bloody sweat that fell from the Master's brow on 
Gethsemane, for, as Lewis Morris sings: 

Well has it been said that 

Toil is the law of life. 

It is the medicine of grief, 

The remedy wherefrom Life giveth his beloved sleep. 

The lowest labor honestly rendered has in it more 
of religion than the highest indolence, because it 
draws from the hidden fountain of life, which the 
old Bible calls the ''heart." Something of that heart 
goes into every effort; something of saving grace is 
in every projection of life. The arm, however lowly, 
that wields the ax, uses the shovel, holds the plow, 
or drops the seed, is engaged in a priestly function. 



SECRET SPRINGS 



403 



But there is something more to be said about this 
labor. 

Not Robert CoUyer's horseshoe but his lecture on 
''Clear Grit" is the best interpreter of CoUyer's heart. 
The highest issue from that fountain, so diligently 
kept, has been his output at the pulpit, not at the 
forge. They who delve for truth render higher 
service than they who bring up the coal and iron out 
of the shallower shafts of nature. God's bravest 
mariners sail on seas more lonely than the Atlantic. 
They are the diviner cultivators who plant beauty 
and grow thought; they who 

Midst misery and foul infected air 

befriend the friendless, best represent that ritual of 
love; they are the issues of the well-kept heart. 

"Laborare est orare' sang the monk of St. Bene- 
dict — "To labor is to pray," but the higher labor 
makes the higher prayer. So we may well continue 
the lines of Lewis IMorris in his ''Ode of Life" : 

A5'e, labor, thou are blest, 

From all the earth th}' voice a constant prayer 

Soars upward day and night; 

A voice of aspiration after right; 

A voice of effort yearning for its rest; 

A voice of high hope conquering despair. 

When we think of these issues of the human 
heart as the offerings of religion, we realize how 
much more piety there is in the world than our 
churches make exhibit of. More hymns of praise 
are daily wafted heavenward than are in our hymn- 



404 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



books. There is more religion, more holiness, aye, 
more Christianity in the world than the census report 
would indicate. In rare moments the heart knows 
that all reality is a revelation of God, all beauty is 
heavenly, all truth divine, all love sacred. 

How are you to guard this fountain of life, to 
"keep the heart with all diligence" that the issues 
thereof may be more worthy? 

We, in Chicago have recently had an opportunity 
of witnessing a beautiful rendition of Wagner's great 
religious drama, Parsifal. In this drama of the soul 
the greatest musician of modern times, if not the 
most synthetic artist of all times, made all the fine 
arts — architecture, painting, sculpture, poetry, and 
music — combine in a supreme effort to reveal to the 
heart the ideal, to move the spirit with a holy pas- 
sion, to kindle the will with a divine purpose. This 
drama that fascinated the eye and the ear, builds on 
the beautiful legends of the Middle Ages which 
sought through story to teach the soul the high les- 
sons of life. 

The Holy Grail was the cup that passed from lip 
to lip at the farewell supper of Jesus and his dis- 
ciples ; it was the same cup that caught the blood that 
a few hours later flowed from the pierced side of the 
Crucified One. This cup and the spear that pierced 
the innocent heart were the holy relics entrusted to 
a fraternity of holy men dwelling on Mont Salvat in 
Spain. These sanctities fed body and soul and kept 
the sacred brotherhood joyful, serene, triumphant. 



SECRET SPRINGS 



405 



But Klingsor, the evil-minded, being refused admis- 
sion into the holy brotherhood, reared on the adjoin- 
ing mountain his palaces and gathered his followers 
in the spirit of evil. In his dominion, black magic 
triumphed, as on the adjoining mount white magic 
obtained. Through his wiles, Amfortas, the King of 
the Mount of Salvation, yielded, and the spear was 
lost. The Holy Grail lost its power, and Amfortas 
suffered from a wound in his side that would not 
heal. He sought far and near for remedies, but no 
healing fountain, no soothing balm, no potent simple, 
could heal the wound. There was no help save in 
regaining the holy spear, and this recovery could come 
only by the hand of one whose heart was pure, a guile- 
less soul. The brotherhood looked far and waited 
long, until at last Parsifal came, a youth whom his 
mother had sequestered in a far off desert-land lest he 
might hear the call to knighthood and go forth and 
be lost to her as his father had done before him. But 
the pageantry of knighthood passed by; he heard the 
triumphant blast; he saw the gallant riders; his heart 
bounded for action, and he strayed far away in search 
of adventure. He appears within the boundaries of 
Mont Salvat, rejoicing in the triumph of his bow that 
brought down a spotless swan. Unwittingly he had 
taken a life that was esteemed sacred by the holy 
brotherhood, but when his heart realized the sacri- 
lege, he was moved with pity and broke his bow and 
flung it away. He passed on his way to serve his 
apprenticeship, to learn the role of the true knight, 



4o6 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



by enduring hardships Hke a good soldier and resist- 
ing the temptations of passion. At last he ripens 
into full knighthood, with guileless heart, and recap- 
tures the sacred spear. This restoration heals the 
flowing wound in Amfortas' side, the domain of 
the wicked Klingsor crumbles, and the regnancy of 
]\Iont Salvat is triumphantly restored. 

The story of Parsifal is the story of every 
youth who seeks to "keep his heart with all dili- 
gence." The lessons of this song-drama are many; 
we will try to count a few of them. 

The mother of Parsifal, though a holy woman, 
was not wise. She could not keep her son to her- 
self or to purity by exclusion. Purity of heart comes 
not through isolation; ignorance is not innocence. 
Richard Wagner derives the name 'Tarsifal" from 
the Arabic "Fal"— a fool; "Parsifal"— the foohsh 
pure one. A truer derivation is from the "Peredur" 
of the Welsh tales of King Arthur, a name which 
means the pure, not the silly or the simple. True 
innocence is based on wisdom. Knowledge is the 
most efficient shield of the pure heart. Therefore, 
if you would "keep your heart with all diligence," 
go forth into the world, take your place in life. 
Every new word is a new weapon to fight away the 
evil forces. Foolishness is irreverence ; ignorance is 
impiety; indifference rests in stupidity. Train the 
powers nature has endowed you with. However 
much abused, "culture" is still an indispensable word 
in the vocabulary of youth. The schoolroom is one 



SECRET SPRINGS 



407 



of the vestibules of the temple of the Most High. 
The true teacher is prophet and priest to the grow- 
ing mind. If you would ''keep your heart with all 
diligence," increase your store of knowledge, widen 
your vision. 

"The learned eye is still the loving one," and 
''Growing thought makes growing reverence," says 
Robert Browning. 

Do not mistake the simplicity of ignorance for 
the single-mindedness of one who at the market of 
life has invested in the priceless treasure, who, in the 
multiplicity of opportunities and claims, has chosen 
the better part. 

Again, Parsifal must needs not only see the 
world but he must face it. He cannot escape tempta- 
tion; he must meet it. The sacred spear can be held 
only by the developed arm. Religion is not a spasm 
but a struggle; not the confession of an hour, but the 
travail of years. Conversion? Yes. Not once, but 
many times you must turn and go in the other direc- 
tion, and after you have faced the right way, you 
must climb. Nothing great comes easily; few bless- 
ings happen. The powers of the soul — of the 
"heart," as the Bible would call it — are more in 
danger of crumbling from inactivity or dying from 
dry rot than of being wearied by a great effort or 
wasted by high endeavor. 

My young friends, do not be deceived. It is not 
easy for anyone to be good. Neither virtue nor ex- 
cellence comes without struggle. Goodness comes high 



4o8 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



in the world's market. Self-control and world-control 
come through self-denial and self-discipline. "Keep 
thy heart with all diligence." This is not a matter of 
hoarding, but of investing. It is easier to make 
money than to make character. It is a shorter road 
to wealth than to nobility. There are more good 
mathematicians, skilful chemists, ready botanists, 
turned out of our schools than there are high-minded 
young men and women. Effort, effort, effort, and 
more effort, alone brings Parsifal to the holy mount. 
Jesus had to carry his own cross to Gethsemane, and 
it is very much the same price that you and I, the 
young and the old, must pay for the Christly attain- 
ments. 

After knowledge and after struggle comes the 
cumulative power which we call ''habit." The knights 
of the world serve long apprenticeships. The vener- 
able guardian on Mont Salvat lost his hope in Parsi- 
fal when he saw that the boy was unmoved by the 
holy mysteries of the sacred Communion. He cast 
him out, for he reckoned not on the power of growth. 
We hear none too much about the power of a bad 
habit, but not nearly enough about the power of a 
good habit. When did the musician gain his skill? 
Which one of the ten thousand strokes of the ham- 
mer broke the cannon's trunnion? The musician's 
skill came all the way along. Every stroke of the 
hammer contributed to the broken trunnion. 

Says E. P. Powell, 'Tnstead of man being created 
by God, he has had for the most part to create himself, 



SECRET SPRINGS 



409 



and this he does by slow accumulation of efforts, by 
steadily piling up attempts, until at last success 
blooms." 

Habit is the penny savings-bank which will surely 
accumulate a fund equal to the great emergency. Oh, 
my young friends, if you would ''keep the heart with 
all diligence" you must become habitual, not in your 
indulgences but in your self-control. We talk of 
"confirmed" drunkards. Let us talk more of ''con- 
firmed" abstainers. You read about the boy of 
eighteen who is "addicted" to the tobacco habit, as a 
warning; let us look at the man of sixty who is 
addicted to doing without the dirty weed, as an 
inspiration. There is a holy side to routine, a 
saving grace in repetition. Let us make the Golden 
Rule a habit, sympathy a custom, truth-telling auto- 
matic. Let us habituate ourselves to the details of 
grace — the heaven-making "thank you," the recon- 
ciling "if you please," spoken so often that they come 
to be the armor and the weapons of the heart. 

Would you "keep the heart with all diligence?" 
Learn to transfigure the commonplaces. Experience 
alone will teach you that simple things are the great 
things ; that near things are the most divine. 

This sermon is dedicated to the twentieth Confir- 
mation Class of All Souls Church. For twenty 
years the children of these classes have turned 
responsive faces up to mine. I have seen 
the pure light of high intentions, of clear 
purposes, of human and humane sympathies, shine 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



in their eyes. I have watched them grow into young 
manhood and womanhood. Many of them have 
asked me to speak the word that consecrated them 
to the high tasks of home-making; some have brought 
their children to me for the christening of the church 
and the dedications of rehgion. I have stood with 
many of them in their griefs beside open graves and 
have tried to speak words of hope and consolation 
over the silent forms from which the spirit had 
flown; I have watched the majority of my pupils 
go out ipto the world of haste and hurry, of social 
anxieties and ambitions; I have seen them bargain 
for too many "preoccupations," too many "previous 
engagements," too many things to see and to have, 
to leave a margin of time for the routines of their 
childhood — the Sunday habit, the church relation, 
the periodic invitations to the soul, the weekly 
inflowing of the tides of the spirit. I have mourned 
over the loss of what I must believe to be a benign 
habit, and I wonder if the citadel of the heart has 
not suffered for want of the "diligent" keeping of 
such helping and holy habits. It is sad to see men 
and women in middle life grow indifferent to instru- 
mentalities that were life-forming in their childhood 
and that will again, as they hope and intend, prove 
life-giving in old age. 

There is saving power in a gracious habit, 
and I can think of no one habit that carries more 
benignity, safety, and inspiration than the systematic 
attendance and systematic support of the co-operative 



SECRET SPRINGS 



411 



life of the soul, the consecrations of self-denial on 
the part of the individual in the interest of the larger 
self — the church of the devout life. 

I fear that the menace of the heart which brings 
about this laxity of conduct, this indifference to 
routine, this spasmodic and chaotic administration of 
one's spiritual interests, is the result of unthinking 
explosions which make of Kundry the most weird and 
pathetic character in Wagner's great drama. She is 
the Wandering Jewess of the Christian legend. She 
was the happy, beautiful, winsome Jewish girl who 
laughed at the cross-burdened Master on his way to 
Calvary. That wanton laugh exiled her from the 
communion of heaven and made of her a wandering 
witch throughout the ages. How many lives are 
thus ostracized by the laughing demon, youth's pas- 
sion for amusement, the love of fun that drives out 
the love of truth, the tantalizing appetite for a ''good 
time," that never is satisfied, that never can be satis- 
fied. It will never bring peace to the soul, but rather 
it makes joy forever a stranger to the heart. 

Oh, let the undercurrent of your lives be serious, 
young men and women, if you would ''keep the 
heart with all diligence." Beware of the "fraterni- 
ties" and the "sororities" that undertake to fill your 
lives with joyous fellowship by ostracizing from 
your chosen circles the uncongenial, the poor, the 
stupid, the over-serious, aye, even those you may 
deem coarse and vicious. Beware, lest like Kundry 
you become a grewsome wanderer, an embodied 



412 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



ghost, always yearning for the love and companion- 
ship that are driven away by the haunting laugh. A 
longing to serve and to help rather than a desire to 
avoid and evade unpleasant duties and persons will 
alone save you from the damnation of Kundry, who 
was doomed to become and remain at once a laughing 
fiend and a sobbing penitent, throughout unnumbered 
alternations of hope and despair, of flippancy and 
shame. 

Let me name one more safeguard to the citadel of 
the heart. The most fatal diseases are atmo- 
spheric. The sewer-gas that rises impalpable from the 
sewer, the malaria that lurks in the balmy air of mid- 
summer evenings, the bacteria of smallpox and the 
great white plague, assail us without note of warning 
to any of our senses. Thus also are we assailed by 
the diseases of the spirit. Look well to the drainage, 
the ventilation, the atmosphere of the heart. Oh, 
my young friends, beware of the mephitic poison that 
blights without warning, weakens without giving 
alarm, debilitates the source of life! Oh, the sick 
spirits that droop around us, for causes hard to deter- 
mine because they are so near, so persistent, so silent ! 
I have just pleaded for the sanitary value of a church 
habit. I close by pleading with you to seek the vital- 
izing atmosphere of the best. Make friends with the 
noblest. Let the young seek the old, as the aged and 
honored seek the young. Good health is contagious. 
Frequent the uplands of the spirit; seek the mountain 
air. Health is, to say the least, as contagious as dis- 



SECRET SPRINGS 



413 



ease. Bask in the sunshine of the noble. You can- 
not attend to the moral drainage, the spiritual ventila- 
tion, you cannot control the atmosphere of the soul 
by yourself any more than you can alone secure those 
sanitary conditions for the body. Keeping the heart 
is more and more a social problem. Morals and 
religion are more and more things of the plural num- 
ber. 

This, then, is my last plea — ''Keep your heart 
with all diligence" by seeking wisdom, by facing the 
problems of duty, by the regularity of your quest, 
by sober earnestness, and by a bracing environment, 
the companionship of nobility. 



THE ROSARY OF A HOLY LIFE 



spake our Lord: "If one draw near 
Unto God — with praise and prayer — 
Half a ciihitj God will go 
Twenty leagues to meet him so. 
He who walketh unto God, 
God will run upon the road. 
All the quicklier to forgive 
One who learns at last to live" 
— From Edwin Arnold's "Adam Quitting Eden" 



XXII 



THE ROSARY OF A HOLY LIFE 

He needs no other rosary whose thread of life is strung 
with beads of love and thought. — From the Persian 

Six hundred and ninety-four years ago this very 
day (April 8, 1906), the Httle ItaHan town of Assisi 
was beautiful with flowers. The streets were gay 
with bright costumes. Nobles and peasants were 
dressed in their very best. The ladies were decked in 
all their jewelries and fineries, and the girls marched 
in procession, dressed in white, wearing their pretty 
gilt crowns, to the churches to celebrate Palm Sun- 
day. 

In this procession was little eighteen-year old 
Clara, the oldest daughter of Favorino and Ortolano 
Sciffo, one of the most famed and famous families 
in the town. She was a petted child, reared amidst 
palatial elegance, already famous for her beauty. 
She was courted by the accomplished and eminent; 
suitors many sought her hand, and her doting parents 
urged the claims of their favorites. But the stately 
tones of the organ, the sonorous intonations of the 
priests at the altar, the solemn prayers and the mystic 
communion, failed to comfort the troubled heart of 
Clara. When, at the close of the solemn mass, the 
pretty procession of girls arose, each to receive a 
palm branch to carry down the cathedral aisle in 

417 



4i8 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



token of the triumphal entry of the Man of Nazareth 
into Jerusalem on the first day of the week which 
was to end in the mock trial, the loneliness of the 
garden and the agony and disgrace of the cross, 
Clara remained kneeling. She had no heart for the 
pretty festival. The kind old bishop, touched by the 
humility and bashfulness of the beautiful girl, 
descended the altar steps and with his own hand put 
into her hand her palm branch. 

That evening Clara slipped away from the ele- 
gance, the comforts, the privileges, the love, and the 
flattery, and what her playmates would have called 
the splendid times and the high chances, and quietly 
sought the simple friar, the friend of the poor, whose 
searching words had touched her heart with a sense 
of reality and filled her soul with a hunger for useful- 
ness, a thirst for sincerity. Two years before she 
had heard him preach, and his words had awakened 
in her young heart a thirst for righteousness 
that seemed to make real the Golden Rule and pos- 
sible the Beatitudes. During these two years she had 
watched his work, and her soul grew more and more 
dissatisfied with the shows, the jollities and the 
selfishness of the life she saw about her. With this 
good man she had conferred, and he had promised to 
welcome her and to help her. To this little known 
and unpopular missionary of the simple life, this 
advocate of the down-trodden, this enemy of sham 
and opponent of tyranny, the child fled. 

The good brothers sang their evening hymns, and 



THE ROSARY OF A HOLY LIFE 



419 



Francis, for such was the name of this humble 
preacher, read the words of Jesus to his disciples. 
The young girl promised to try to conform her life 
to these teachings. She laid aside her golden crown 
and, at her request, the good preacher cut off her 
golden locks and conducted her to a nunnery an 
hour's walk away. 

The next morning her knightly father pursued 
her in hot indignation; he begged her to return, 
coaxed her, threatened her, but she was immovable. 
But the Benedictines in whose nunnery she had 
found shelter were frightened, and she was moved to 
another convent. Two weeks later her little sister 
Agnes followed her and begged the privilege of join- 
ing her in the quiet life of usefulness which she had 
chosen. This time the father's fury knew no bounds. 
With a band of relatives he burst into the convent, 
seized the child of fourteen and, in spite of her cries, 
they roughly dragged her away, but when she fainted 
in their arms they were alarmed and dropped the limp 
body in the field, leaving kind laborers to carry her 
back to the arms of Clara. 

There were other women in the town who were 
sick of the style, the show, and the wickedness about 
them, and one after another came to join Clara and 
Agnes. The good Francis helped them form a com- 
munity, provided quarters for them, and set apart 
some of his fellow-workers to provide for their bodily 
needs. Meanwhile, under the leadership of the beau- 
tiful Clara, the women set themselves to work to 



420 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



visit the miserable, to nurse the sick, to keep clean 
the altar cloth, and to spin the flax for more linen, 
until they unconsciously grew into an order. They 
called themselves the "Sisters of the Poor," but the 
world loved and still loves to know them by the 
endearing name of the ''Little Clares." 

Clara survived the good pastor, Francis, twenty- 
seven years. She lived long enough to see his prin- 
ciples of poverty and submission distrusted by the 
Pope and ridiculed by the other organizations of the 
church. She lived to take the place of the great 
leader — St. Francis of Assisi — in defending the 
principles of simple living and high service. Popes 
and bishops begged of her to accept property, to accu- 
mulate riches, in order that she might do more good, 
but she steadfastly refused such offers, and they 
dared not oppose her judgment or over-ride her con- 
science. In her gray gown, fastened at the waist 
with a rope, deeply hooded and with sandaled feet, 
she went about blessing the suffering, inspiring the 
poor, rebuking, when need be, and, as she could, 
leading the rich into the higher riches. 

Francis was the great reformer in the church of 
the Middle Ages. The church soon canonized him; 
he became "Saint Francis" while Clara was still alive. 
But alongside of the story of Francis stands in his- 
tory the story of "Santa Clara," the "Little Sister 
of the Poor," who found freedom by escaping from 
the gilded bars of wealth, an imprisonment which 
she compared to that of the poor larks that are 



THE ROSARY OF A HOLY LIFE 



421 



"kept away from the blue sky, which is their home." 
When she exchanged her silken gown for the gray 
serge, her act was not renunciation but freedom; 
the vow was not one of poverty but of liberty — liber- 
ty to think high thoughts, to do good deeds, to seek 
the right, and to enjoy the companionship of the 
truly noble. Clara did not seek salvation by wearing 
a thorny crown of mortification and prayer; she 
sought the flowery path of service, of daily useful- 
ness, of humble tasks that were worth doing. 

Says Paul Sabatier in his beautiful Life of St. 
Francis : 

Under the shade of the olive trees of these Sisters Francis 
composed his finest work — that which Ernest Renan called the 
most prophetic utterances of modern religious sentiment — "The 
Canticle of the Sun." 

Beautiful is the story of Sister Clara, the wealthy 
child who chose to be the ''Sister of the Poor," and 
found her freedom and joy in loving deeds and high 
thoughts. But Clara does not stand alone. About 
one hundred years later, in another Italian town — 
Sienna — there was born a daughter named Catherine 
into the home of a dyer, one famed for the fine 
quality of his woolen fabrics, which were washed at 
the village fountain by his skillful daughters. The 
youngest of these was Catherine, and she became to 
the Dominican Order what Clara was to the Francis- 
can — the Mother Superior of saintly women. Early 
she saw visions ; gladly she vowed herself to silence 
and to service; she chose to sleep on a pine board 



422 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



with a log for a pillow. In a vision she took a crown 
of gold and jewels from her head and placed instead 
thereon a crown of thorns. To her was given the 
gift of tongues. Perhaps she was the first of that 
long line of women who have swayed people by 
public speech. She became an ambassador at royal 
courts. She faced bishops and popes and compelled 
them to square their lives by their pretensions. She 
won her power by renunciation, and art and poetry 
joined with history in glorifying the life of Saint 
Catherine of Sienna, the poor girl who rose to be a 
power in kings' palaces and to be a bishop of bishops, 
now a guide and anon a terror to cardinals and 
popes. 

But not all the saints of history wore serge robes, 
lived in nunneries, and renounced home joys. Thir- 
teen years after Clara was born in Assisi, Italy, there 
was born into the home of the king of Hungary a 
daughter, Elizabeth. She entered into the joys and 
delights of a palace. She had a royal lover and 
became a happy bride and a devoted mother, and, 
through all this, not in spite of it, became the Mother 
Bountiful, the benignant hand, the willing feet that 
carried sunshine into hovels, that nursed the plague- 
smitten, cheered the dying, sheltered the orphan, and 
encouraged the lonely, in such a fashion that she 
is known in history as "Saint Elizabeth." Church 
lore abounds in stories of her. Charles Kingsley 
made her the heroine of his ''Saint's Tragedy," and 
Edwin Markham has made her the theme of one of 



THE ROSARY OF A HOLY LIFE 423 



his beautiful poems called "Christmas Banqueting 
Time." He tells us how 

From the towers came snatch of song and many a ruddy shout. 
Elizabeth was there above, among her maiden band, 
Spinning the new-cut wool to warm the naked of her land. 

And at the festal board, while others reveled in wine, 
she rejoiced in simple fare and water from the spring. 
Her husband thus proudly drank to her health: 

"Now," cried the Duke : "Not all the saints have felt the wind 
of death; 

Come, drink to one who walks the earth, my wife, Elizabeth; 
And I will pledge her beauty with this water in her cup." 
So stooping down he caught and swung her golden goblet up, 
And tasted — paused — tasted again, for lo, it was rare wine! 
More strangely sweet than any juice pressed from an earthly 
vine. 

"Ho, varlet, from what pipe this wine and from what cellar 
shelf?" 

"From good Saint Kilian's well, sire, and I drew it up myself !" 
She flushed; the table stared; the Duke looked foolishly 
about, 

The hall so still they heard far bells breaking the night 
without. 

Then up spoke Helias the Seer : "I saw the water poured — 
Saw too, an angel bending by our lady at the board. 
Pouring with courteous gesture from a flagon of red wine, 
Then fading in the brightness of the fire-light's dancing 
shine." 

She heard in glad amaze: he wins God's favor unawares 
Who, self-forgot in brother love, a brother's burden bears. 

The legends tell us that this lovely queen in her 
childhood collected what remained from the table, 
saved from her own repasts, and carried it in her 



424 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



basket to the poor children of the town. She, too, 
was led from very shame to lay off her golden crown 
as she knelt in devotion in the presence of the thorn- 
crowned Master. Once on a severe winter day as 
she was carrying bread, meat and eggs in the skirts 
of her robe to a poor family, she met her husband 
returning from the chase, and when, half -indignant 
at her exposure, he demanded, ^'What have you 
there?" she blushingly opened her mantle, and lo! 
he saw naught but white and red roses, fragrant and 
beautiful in mid-winter. The proud husband took 
one from her lap, pinned it to his bosom and said, 
''I wear a rose of Paradise." When she moved 
through the pest-smitten hospital, little children clung 
to her robes, crying "Mutter! Mutter!" When at 
last her beloved husband, as a Crusader, died far 
from home, she faded away; no sooner had she 
breathed her last than her very couch was seized and 
divided into fragments as holy relics, and her burial 
place became a shrine to which German peasants still 
go on holy pilgrimages — so blessed is the life of 
charity and kindness. 

But not all the saints of the church are women. 
Beautiful as is the story of Clara, the humble, of 
Catherine, the eloquent, and of Elizabeth, the charit- 
able, the story of the Mother Church is rich with 
manly saints, masculine heroes, whose stories out- 
shine the stories of warriors, whose weapons were 
more powerful than swords. 

Travelers in France frequently come upon images 



THE ROSARY OF A HOLY LIFE 



425 



and paintings of an amiable saint carrying little 
foundlings in his arms or perhaps giving them 
shelter and care as they cluster at his feet. Here in 
Chicago, as in most large cities, there is a Catholic 
charitable organization whose special business it is 
to care for neglected and helpless orphans, under the 
title of 'The Society of St Vincent de Paul." Vin- 
cent was born in Gascony at the foot of the Pyrenees 
three hundred and thirty years ago. His father was 
a poor farmer, and the child began life as a shepherd 
lad. From his childhood he was marked with sweet- 
ness and gentleness. At twenty he donned the serge 
robe and the knotted cord and became a Franciscan. 
For ten years he studied for the priesthood, and at 
the end of this time, while on a voyage to Marseilles, 
he was captured by some African pirates and for two 
years served as a galley slave, sold from one master 
to another until he became the possession of one 
whose wife had pity on his gentle face and recog- 
nized his superiority and his training. She asked him 
to sing for her. He choked down his tears and 
chanted, "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and 
wept." Master and mistress accompanied him to 
Rome and gave him his liberty. He had known the 
wretchedness of slavery's chains, he had known what 
it was to be sick, friendless, and forlorn. He 
returned to Marseilles and began his life of helpful- 
ness, visiting the criminals in the prisons and the 
ruffians on the docks. He sought the wretched girls, 
the abandoned women, and, in the interest of such, 



426 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



instituted the benignant order of the Sisters of Char- 
ity, whose business it was to visit the sick, the poor, 
and the wicked. At last this man who gave his life 
to the lowest was sought in the counsels of the mighty 
and at the bedside of kings. The proud Cardinal 
Richelieu consulted him, and Louis XIII when 
dying, summoned him from the bedside of galley 
slaves. He established hospitals for foundlings, and 
when war and turmoil raged he preached peace. 

Of course such a one was soon canonized, and 
he became ''Saint Vincent de Paul" in 1747, having 
died in the eighty-fourth year of his age, eighty-four 
years before. In Paris there is a great church now 
which bears his name. It contains an authentic por- 
trait of the old man 'Svith bright, clear eye, broad 
forehead, silver hair and beard, which fill up the out- 
line suggested by the imagination," says Mrs. Jame- 
son. 

But the Catholic church holds no monopoly of 
saints. Before the Catholic church was, and outside 
of its pale in Christian history, there have been gentle 
men and strong women who have strung the thread 
of their lives with beads of love and thought. 

We have but to think of John Howard giving 
his life for prisoners, of Dorothea Dix growing old 
in the service of the insane, of Lydia Maria Child, 
who gleaned our text for us in the writings of the 
Persians, learned in the religions of the world, loving 
poetry, no mean poet herself, sacrificing everything 
in the interest of the slave, willing to leave her place 



THE ROSARY OF A HOLY LIFE 



427 



among the most cultured in the city to nurse John 
Brown in his prison, when he was under sentence to 
be hanged. And then think of her who w^as a few 
weeks ago laid to rest, — mourned by the nation, hon- 
ored the round world over, who devoted her life to 
an unpopular cause, who in her youth was spurned, 
scorned, arrested, under sentence of imprisonment — 
all for an ideal, an ideal not yet realized. Susan B. 
Anthony argued well for the enfranchisement of 
women, but Susan B. Anthony herself was a vindi- 
cation of her theory, a justification of her claim, 
more powerful than anything she ever wrote or said. 
Think of our own Jane Addams — with a little patri- 
mony that would have enabled her to live her life com- 
fortably, quietly, easily, among her friends, but choos- 
ing to live among the foreign-born, the unlettered, 
the uncleanly, and perhaps the coarse, finding happi- 
ness in the company of peddlers, scrub-women, sales- 
women, draymen, and mechanics; finding delightful 
companionship with Bohemian, Italian, Russian-Jew^, 
and modern Greek, over there on Halsted Street, 
making of an old dilapidated, neglected, abandoned 
mansion the center of a group of buildings that radi- 
ate life, cheer, and joy : that attract the cultured, the 
wealthy, the traveled — the most conspicuous glow- 
point in the city of Chicago. 

Do not these non-Catholics deserve the halo? 
Shall we not say "Saint Howard," "Saint Dorothea," 
"Saint Lydia," "Saint Susan," and ''Saint Jane?" 
Shall we not crown these, aye, many more, whose 



428 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



names have never appeared in the newspapers, who 
have not written themselves into our history, but who 
have "strung the thread of life with beads of 
love and thought" — the patient mothers, the thought- 
ful uncles, the tender aunts, the honest, honorable, 
happy men and women? Let us today crown them all 
with a chaplet of roses. All of them should have 
their palm branches today. 

But how does all this apply to the pretty verse 
from the Persian scripture which our St. Lydia Maria 
Child gleaned for us and which we found, among 
other great texts, in her book entitled The Aspira- 
tions of the World f 

The Rosary first meant "a wreath of roses" used 
in decorating the loved and the lovely. Greek, Egyp- 
tian, Mohammedan, as well as Catholic, were wont to 
count their prayers by the help of beads. Perhaps 
it was St. Dominic, the friend of St. Catherine, 
who first used the rosary as a systematic help to devo- 
tion. He organized it and made it a part of the 
church ritual. A complete rosary contains one hun- 
dred and fifty small beads separated into groups of 
ten or fifteen by larger beads, and the devout Catho- 
lic, when he goes to his prayers, recites the Pater 
Noster, the ''Our Father," for each large bead and 
the Ave Maria, the "Hail Mary, full of grace, our 

Lord is with thee; Holy Mary, Mother of 

God, pray for us now and at the hour of our death," 
for each small one. Before beginning the rosary, the 
devout make the sign of the cross three times — once 



THE ROSARY OF A HOLY LIFE 



429 



to ward off the devil, once to implore the help of the 
Holy Trinity, and once to bring to mind the cross of 
man's salvation. 

Again, the rosary of one hundred and fifty beads 
is divided into three parts : The first fifty prayers 
are to fix the mind on the joyous mysteries — the 
gladness of life; the next fifty on the dolorous mys- 
teries — the sins and sorrows of life; and the last on 
the glorious mysteries — the hopes and triumphant 
immortality that await us. 

We will not say that there is no value in these 
repetitions. Words do suggests thoughts. Reitera- 
tion deepens mental impressions. What the figures, 
lines, and signs on the blackboard are to geometry 
and algebra, that the words, the notes, the intona- 
tions, the associations, the bended knee, the bowed 
head and the counted beads may be to the awaken- 
ing of conscience, the deepening of love, the 
strengthening of the will. The wise men of the 
w^orld, the great teachers as well as the great priests 
and prophets, have appreciated the value of repeti- 
tion. The old Jew at the close of the Sabbath, the 
Talmud tells us, would repeat the name of Elias, the 
prophet, over and over again, arranging the letters in 
as many different ways as possible. In the Hebrew 
the name is spelled with five letters, and these can 
be arranged in one hundred and twenty different 
ways. The devout Jew found peace and strength, 
perhaps ecstasy, in pronouncing the name in these 



430 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



one hundred and twenty ways, such as Elias, Elisa, 
Elsai, Esail, Lesai, and the rest. 

The Mohammedan has a rosary of ninety-nine 
beads, each one of which stands for a name of Deity, 
some favorite synonym of Allah. Some of these 
are 'The Merciful," 'The Compassionate," "The 
Help in Peril," 'The Creator," "The Dominant," 
"The Provider," "The All-Knower," "The Loving," 
"The All-Glorious," "The Truth," "The Firm," "The 
Nearest Friend," "The Ever Living," "The Guide," 
"The Patient," 'The Right," etc. And these the 
devout Moslem repeats over and over again. It is 
well; it is their way of chanting their 

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty! 

Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee; 

Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty. 

Who wert and art, and evermore shalt be ! 

But, my children, these repetitions have their 
dangers. Jesus cautioned his disciples against the 
use of vain repetitions in their prayers. It was this 
danger that the Persian poet saw, perhaps, when he 
broke out in the words of my text. 

He needs no other rosary whose thread of life is strung 
with beads of love and thought. 

A loving deed is the best call to prayer, and a high 
thought brings God near. Our St. Lydia in finding 
this text found many others teaching the same les- 
son. Her beautiful little book. Aspirations of the 
Soul, is open before me at the page where we found 
our text. On the same page I read : 



THE ROSARY OF A HOLY LIFE 43 1 



One came to Mohammed, saying, "My mother has died; 
What shall I do for the good of her soul?" and the prophet 
replied, "Dig a well, that the thirsty may have water to drink." 

On the opposite page I read a text from the 
Koran which says: 

One hour of justice is worth seventy years of prayer. 

And again from the Hindu Bible I read: 
The Lord of Life should not be worshiped with faded 

flowers ; rather with those that grow in thine own garden ; 

reverence is itself a flower. 

Thus I have thought it best to try to illustrate 
rather than to analyze our text; to prove its beauty 
and power by the example of men and women who 
have lived the life of love and thought. Only such 
have entered into the peace and joy of worship. 
There are many things we want, few things we need. 
Things — much clothing, much jewelry, the silks and 
the ribbons, the carriages and the pianos, the com- 
forts and the luxuries — may imprison us as they did 
sweet Clara of Assisi, and the only escape from this 
prison is through the gates of love, through the por- 
tals of thought. 

The life of trust, of joy, of reverence, is beauti- 
ful. If the beads of the rosary help us, let us use 
them, but the beads of love and thought can never 
fail. What we love and what we think — these shape 
our prayers. 

Midas, the old king of Phrygia, begged of Bac- 
chus that whatever he touched might be turned to 
gold, and Bacchus, like a true god, granted the 



432 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



prayer. And alas! bread and wine, corn and apples, 
all turned at his touched into the cold, hard, yellow 
metal that would not appease hunger or satisfy thirst. 
He was starving in his golden house, and he prayed 
his Lord to take back the boon. Father Bacchus said, 
''Go plunge in the stream that flows by the city of 
Sardis, and thou shalt be delivered of thy curse." 
And Midas was cured of his greed. Now hating 
wealth, he served Pan, the shepherd god; he loved 
him who could play upon the reeds, and when 
even Apollo played upon his lyre, i\Iidas claimed 
that Pan on his pipes yielded sweeter music, and 
Apollo punished his folly by giving him the ears of 
an ass. He sought to hide his shame by wearing a 
purple turban to conceal his long ears. But the 
barber, when he cut his hair, discovered the long 
ears; he dared not make public the scandal lest the 
king might behead him, but he could not keep the 
secret, so he dug a hole in the ground and, stoop- 
ing down, whispered softly, ''King Midas has the 
ears of an ass," and then he filled up the hole. But 
rushes grew up out of the spot and whenever the 
wind blew the reeds whispered softly, "King ]\Iidas 
has the ears of an ass." So again he was the victim 
of his thoughts, the slave of his loves. 

How important, then, my children, is it for you 
who would be truly devout, peaceful, joyful, helpful, 
if you would become Claras, Janes, Francises, Vin- 
cents, and Howards in the world, to see to it that 
you string your lives with "beads of love and 



THE ROSARY OF A HOLY LIFE 433 

thought/'' and thus fashion for yourselves the rosary 
of the holy life,, which is now, always was and 
always will be the helpful life, the joyous, cheerful 
life. So may it be! 



I 



CHARACTER-BUILDING 



POLONIUS' ADVICE TO HIS SON LAERTES 



There; my blessing with thee! 
And these few precepts in thy memory 
See thou character. Giz'e thy thoughts no tongue, 
Xor any nnproportion'd thought his act. 
Be thou familiar, hut by no means z'ulgar. 
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried. 
Grapple them to thy soul -with hoops of steel; 
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment 
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware 
Of entrance to a quarrel, hut, being in, 
Bear 't that the opposed may beware of thee. 
Give every man thy ear, hut few thy voice; 
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. 
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy. 
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy; 
For the apparel oft proclaims the man, 
And they in France of the best rank and station 
Are most select and generous, chief in that. 
Neither a borrower nor a lender be; 
For loan oft loses both itself and friend. 
And borrowing dulls tJie edge of husbandry. 
This above all: to tJiine own self he true, 
And it must follow, as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then he false to any man. 
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee! 

— From Shakespeare's Hamlet, (Act I, Scene iii) 



XXIII 



CHARACTER-BUILDING 

Above all, to thine on'n self he true, 
And it must follow as the night the day. 
Thou canst not then be false to any man. 

— Shakespeare 

Polonius was a garrulous old man ; he narrowly 
escapes being a bore; but his advice to his son, Laer- 
tes, has long since become a classic in the literature 
of youth. Xo lines in Hamlet, the greatest drama 
of the greatest poet, are better known than those 
which you have given me for a text this morning. 
It is more than text, it is a sermon, complete in 
itself, rounded and symmetrical as an egg. To break 
an egg is to spoil its beauty and symmetry, but it 
makes the meat more available. 

You have laid the necessity upon me this morn- 
ing of breaking this Shakespeare egg. The result 
will be a sermon omelet, which, if properly cooked 
and digested, may prove nourishing. 

I am glad that the old man reminded the young 
lad of his responsibility to others ; that he recognized 
promptly the boy's obligation to the ''other man." 
If we are true to our text, whatever we do we must 
not invade the rights of others : we must not prove 
false to the interests of our associates; we must not 
crowd in the game of life, or poach on another's pre- 

437 



438 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



serves. Our interests are identical with the interests 
of the community. My young friends, you must play 
fair; you must not get in the way. It is mean to 
block the wheels of the wagon in which others must 
ride. It is bad to play tricks. It is dishonorable to 
snatch. 

Happily this is no hardship. There is no fun 
unless you observe the rules of the game; there is 
no joy worth having that is born out of another's 
sorrow. The triumph built on another's defeat soon 
or late proves to be a failure. All fortune that brings 
misfortune to others is most unfortunate to the 
possessor thereof ; all such gains are sure losses. 

Here, then, is the first point of our sermon: The 
true interests of the individual are identical with the 
interests of the community. As Emerson says, 
''That can never be good for the bee which is bad 
for the hive." The mean man is always poor; selfish 
wealth is a curse; unkind power is a blight w^hich 
aggravates the misery of the possessor. The wealth, 
whether of body or of mind, of dollars or of ideas, 
that is unmindful of the well-being of others, unkind 
to the other man, adds to the possessor's poverty, 
leads to a misery that over and over again ends in 
despair. Let him who doubts this statement note the 
record of the suicides in the daily papers. 

Above all, to thine own self be true, 
And it must follow as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man. 

How can this be so ? Why should it be so ? Why 



CHARACTER-BUILDING 



439 



should not John have the whole apple though James 
have none, if John gets there first? Why should 
not Jane have all the silks she wants while Betty has 
nothing but calico, if Jane's father has money enough 
and Betty's father runs a wheelbarrow by the rail- 
road track which Jane's father owns and over which 
he rides in his private car? 

This is a big question — too big to be solved by 
young heads. But sometimes young unspoiled hearts 
may feel the truth that is confusing to the sagacity 
<ind sophistry of older heads. You can at least real- 
ize that the man with the wheelbarrow has had much 
to do in making the railroad which furnishes the 
money to buy Jane's silks; and you can understand 
that without the man with the wheelbarrow the rail- 
road would soon become unsafe for the private car 
to run over; and perhaps the father of the girl in 
silks has not played the game fair with the father of 
the girl in calico. However that may be, you can 
understand that the man in the palace car and the 
man at the wheelbarrow are necessary to one another, 
and that a false note in the one life is an injury to 
the other life; and that the highest efficiency, the 
greatest truthfulness in one brings greatest profit to 
the other. You can also understand that this is 
because we are so made that we must live in com- 
munities. We have so many wants, so many dangers, 
as well as so many pleasures, so many and such 
high powers of enjoyment, that we cannot get along 
alone. The vulture which feeds on carrion flies by 



440 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



himself and gorges himself in solitude. But the song 
birds fly in flocks. The wild ducks and geese fly in 
squadrons. The savage man wanders off alone in 
search of his prey; he is content with a small home 
and a narrow tribe. But civiHzed man wants straw- 
berries in winter and ice cream in mid-summer; the 
northern boy likes South American bananas; the 
Cuban girl loves Michigan apples, and there must be 
an exchange for their mutual benefit. 

Shakespeare in our text meant the same thing 
that Paul did when he said, ''None of us liveth to 
himself, and none dieth to himself." And they both 
meant the same thing that Emerson did when he 
said, 

All are needed by each one; 
Nothing is fair or good alone. 

There is great comfort, then, is there not, in the 
first point of our sermon — that our own interests are 
identical with the interests of others; that there is no 
antagonism between our real interests and those of 
the other man; that what is best for us is best for 
him ? Or, put it the other way : The very best thing 
for him is also the very best thing for us. If we only 
knew enough, there is no difference between trying to 
make the most of ourselves and giving the most to 
others, for it amounts to the same thing. 

But we do not always know enough to do this, 
and oftentimes we make a mistake when we say, 
"Never mind the other fellow; I am going to do all 
I can for myself, get all the good I can, know all the 



CHARACTER-BUILDING 



441 



pleasures I may." So we are thrown back on the next 
point of our sermon — How can I be true to myself? 
How may I know what truth is? 

John Ruskin, one of the best teachers of youth, 
one of the highest preachers of the true life that ever 
wrote English, says, "There is great likeness between 
the virtue of man and the enlightenment of the globe 
he inhabits." He was always comparing the build- 
ing of a soul to the building of a house. Architec- 
ture to him was akin to character-building. One of 
his Seven Lamps of Architecture is "The Lamp of 
Truth," and among the lies that most menace the 
integrity of the house and the integrity of life, he 
puts, not the big falsehoods, but the little ones. He 
tells us: 

It is not calumny nor treachery that do the largest sum of 

mischief in the world But it is the glistening and softly 

spoken lie; the amiable fallacy; the patriotic lie of the his- 
torian, the provident lie of the politician, the zealous lie of the 
partisan, the merciful lie of the friend, and the careless lie of 
each man to himself, that cast that black mystery over humanity, 
through which we thank any man who pierces, as we should 
thank one who dug a well in a desert; happy, that the thirst 
for truth still remains with us, even when we have wilfully 
left the fountains of it. 

The three primary "instruments of precision" in 
the hands of the builder, the tools that are absolutely 
necessary, the fundamental tools of integrity, with- 
out which the building cannot go up true, are the 
"square," the "plumb-line" and the "level." These 
are the instruments that determine the integrity of 



442 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



every structure. In the builder's bands tbe words 
'^true" and 'Vight" are interchangeable. Is the 
column plumb ? Is the sill level ? Are the angles accur- 
ate? Then the building is right; it is true. True to 
what? True to the geometry of nature. A level 
consists of just a few drops of water in a glass; but 
it will quickly detect any falsehood in the line. The 
plumb-line is simply a weight at the end of the 
string, and the column must run with it or the build- 
ing falls. A slight variation distresses the eye; con- 
tinue the variation and the building cracks from the 
abnormal strain; continue it enough, and the building 
falls. 

The great monument in Washington to the first 
President lifts its point five hundred and fifty feet 
into the air. The last stone rests as solidly as the 
first course; the man looks out from the top window 
as confidently and safely as he does from the lower 
opening, because every stone was laid to the level and 
every perpendicular joint runs parallel with the 
plumb-line. 

So, if '^to thine own self" you would be true, 
every line must be squared, every act must be 
plumbed, and every motive be levelled, not by 
your whim, by the artificial demand of society, by 
arbitrary convention, by what ''they do" or by what 
"I wish," but by the everlasting geometry of the uni- 
verse. Honesty is a thing of the multiplication table; 
the multiplication table is the primary formula of 
nature; it is the arithmetic of the stars, the geometry 



CHARACTER-BUILDING 



443 



of the "God of things as they are." Any attempt to 
tamper with this is dangerous ; any variation from its 
standard is lying. 

The Greek column has become classic because it 
was strong; it was real; it was created for a purpose 
and served the purpose for which it was created. 
It is true, and consequently beautiful. But when you 
see the workmen on the new county building in Chi- 
cago creating what seem massive granite columns 
out of thin stone slabs and putting them in a position 
where there is no w^eight to be sustained, you are 
looking upon what is to be a hollow sham, a granite 
lie, a false bid for admiration that will eventually 
be withheld. It is a pretense of solidity and reality 
which will strike inward. It will affect the witness in 
the box, the jury in the panel, the lawyer behind the 
bar, the very judge on his bench. 

Do you ask, ''How is one to know what is right, 
how to detect the true?'' There are complications 
in architecture and in conduct requiring complex cal- 
culations and specifications drawn by an expert, but 
in the main the verdicts of the plumb-line, the level, 
and the square are easily rendered. The eye is so 
made that it detects any variation from the straight 
line. The child stands out from under a leaning 
wall. The very horses shy at a crooked building. 
My horse Roos does not like a leaning telephone 
pole by the roadside. Bring your conduct up to the 
dictum of the eye, the level of the heart; trust the 



444 



LOVE .\XD LOY.\LTY 



square of conscience persistently, and you will be 
''true to thine own self."' 

Says Ruskin again in his chapter on "''The Lamp 
of Truth"' : 

Do not think of one falsity as harmless, and another as 
slight, and another as unintended. Cast them all aside : they 
ma}- be light and accidental; but they are an ugly soot from 
the smoke of the pit, for all that; and it is better that our 
hearts should be swept clean of them, without ever care as to 
which is largest or blackest. Speaking truth is like writing 
fair, and com.es only by practice: it is less a maner of will than 
of habit, and I doubt if any occasion can be trivial which 
permits the practice and formation of such a habit. 

How curious is this interlocking of things and 
deeds, of stuffs and acts. The same words are used 
whether the carpenter means his intentions or his door. 
Of the one he says. "1 tell the truth:"' of the other 
he says, 'Tt hangs true." The mason says. "That 
joint is right," and he also says. ''"'^ly bill is right." 
The architect talks about ''"erecting" a building: your 
preacher pleads with you for a '"'rectitude of char- 
acter.'" The young husband saves his money that 
he may build a house. The Free ]\Iasons talk of deal- 
ing with the brethren '"'on the square." and President 
Roosevelt pleads for a ''''square deal."' 

Build thee more stately mansions, 0 my soul, 
says the poet. 

Does it not all mean that somehow the eye with- 
in has been tutored by the same forces that have fixed 
the center of gravity; that the conscience has been 
squared by the great Geometer who has ordained the 



CHARACTER-BUILDING 



445 



formulas of the triangle and the circle? The prin- 
ciples of geometry and of ethics are so allied that they 
can use the same diagrams. The laws of logic, the 
theorems of algebra, and the ''Rule of Three" which 
we used to have in the arithmetic when I went to 
school, all come from the same source. They are 
somehow ordained by the same power; they prove 
each other. 

We can understand this relation better if we 
remember that the universe is alive; that it is still 
growing; that it is not finished. Astronomy is an 
older science than sociology. The planets had fixed 
their orbits and were regular before man began to 
grope and stumble, to fall and rise and fall again, 
and still again to rise. The scientist can calculate to 
a second the coming of an eclipse, but the best we can 
do in politics is to guess at the result of an election, 
and we often guess wrong. 

Boys and girls lead a more uncertain and pre- 
carious life than do calves and colts, and in the life 
of the boy and girl the latest developments are those 
of conscience and will. So you must ask what self 
you are going to be true to — the old, the lower, the 
meaner, or the newer, the higher, the nobler, and on 
that account the self that is most difiicult to sustain. 

The body has its ''appendix," a useless reminis- 
cence of the lower life that is gone. It is often in the 
way. Modern surgery finds it best oftentimes to cut 
it out. So there is often a moral "appendix" which 
allies us to the savage, to our brute ancestry, which 



446 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



must be eliminated as soon as possible. Not only 
are there traces of the wolf and the bear in our 
natures, but of the crayfish which always travels 
backwards — the cowardly conservatism in our 
natures. 

Let us not be true to that self but rather true to 
the forward-looking instincts of the man, the pro- 
phetic yearnings; true to the scientist, the philoso- 
pher, and the psalmist, that is beginning to start in 
our souls, the investigator, the thinker and the wor- 
shiper; true to that which asks questions; to that 
which broods over great problems; to that which 
feels the mystery of life, the divine presence within 
and without. 

The claws are gone but the nails remain. To be 
true to our growing selves, we must resist 
the temptation to scratch our associates. We have 
outgrown horns and hoofs, but the doubled fist and 
the booted foot are still weapons all too convenient. 

'To thine own self be true!" This we can do 
only by being true to our best inheritance. Be worthy 
the blue or black eyes that have been handed down to 
us ready-made, clarified by the tears of our fore- 
elders, lit by the love of our grandmothers and our 
grandfathers. 

Friends, let us be true to the spiritual inheritance 
handed down to us by generations of discoverers, 
conquerors, and martyrs; be true to the splendid 
tribal and national bequests that are ours; live up to 
the heroic of our nation. Are you Irish? Be true to 



CHARACTER-BUILDING 



447 



the spirit of Emmet and O'Connor; be as lyrical as 
Moore; as gentle as Goldsmith. Are you Scotch? 
Remember your plaid ; do not disgrace the Camerons, 
the MacDonalds, or whatever clan you represent. 
Remember Scott and Burns and Carlyle; they are a 
part of you. "To thine own self be true." If Ger- 
man, rejoice in the fatherland, in the uncrowned 
kings of the Rhine-land — Schiller, Lessing, and 
Goethe. It was a French noble who carried upon his 
crest, ''Noblesse oblige !" — ''Nobility compels!" 
Scandinavia had her Vikings; England has her 
Shakespeare; the United States has her Washington 
and her Lincoln. 

Discover thy lineage and ''to thine own self be 
true." 

''Within me there is more!'' is the legend inscribed 
on the beams of an old mansion of Bruges. 
"Within me there is more," is written on the' beams 
of the humblest soul-mansion — more than ancestry, 
more than the venerable descent from monad through 
monkey to man, the record of which is indisputable. 

If you would be true "to thine own self," you 
must be true to this "plus," this spring propulsion; 
you must remember the oak in the acorn, the apple- 
tree in the apple seed, the harvest of July in the sow- 
ing of April. To refuse to yield to this push is to 
cheat the other man. Because this is the hardest 
thing to do, it is the highest loyalty to the other man. 

The mere hoarding of the treasures of the past 
is not the accumulation of wealth. The mere accu- 



448 



LOVE .\XD LOY.VLTY 



mulator, the piler-up of things, or the collator of 
facts, the miser, whether he accumulates gold or lore, 
whether his accumulations be represented by dollars 
or by books, is untrue to himself, to the "'"plus'" in 
his own soul. 

Says David Starr Jordan in his last book, The 
College and tJie Man — 

I know a dog that has buried more than a hundred bones in 
his master's garden, and he is not on the whole ven.- much 
of a dog. 

The old value of an education was based on the 
fact that it helped one to make a living. The boy 
went to school that he might get along. In the light 
of a newer thought, that is a poor boy or a weak girl 
who only manages to '''get along." who is content with 
making a living, and the more elaborate the ''"'living" 
the meaner the inspiration, if it stop there. 

In the same book of David Starr Jordan's, he 
says that the chancellor of the State University of 
Kansas asked each of the graduates of that institu- 
tion to state the advantages that came to them from 
their university life, as taught by experience. Several 
of the answers are given; I like this one much: 

The gratifying feeUng that I know at least a little more 
than is absolutely necessan- for making a living. 

In SO far, the one who gave that answer had been 
true to his higher self. This is probably what we 
mean by the higher education. Out of that ''little 
more than is needed to make a living" comes the joy 
and the power of life, comes the test of excellence; 



CHARACTER-BUILDING 



449 



therein lies character. That "a httle more than is 
needed for a hving" is what makes the prophet and 
the bard, aye, the patriot and the martyr. In that 
''Httle more" we find the power of personality. 

Again in this same lecture Starr Jordan tells of 
his own experience as an undergraduate in the then 
new Cornell University. 

Over forty years ago there was a small circle of 
boys who met together at stated times to tell one 
another "what they had seen and what they had tried 
to see," not for the purpose of getting their lessons, 
increasing their standing, or capturing a degree. Out 
of these forty boys he calls the roll of twenty or more 
who are now living, teaching, inspiring, in college 
halls and elsewhere. Those who in the '70's showed 
each other ''birch blossoms, bacteria, blue-bottle 
flies" etc., etc., are now presidents and professors 
in universities, scattered from Brazil to California. 

"To thine own self be true." You cannot do this 
unless you give wings to the "something more" with- 
in you. Take heed of the beckonings of your better 
nature; try your wings; learn the inspirations of 
love. The power to soar, the gift of flying, comes 
not by nature but by nurture. It is hard w^ork to 
keep ahead of the line. But he only is true to himself 
who seeks it. 

Oh, it is wicked, ve£y wicked, to kill a good pur- 
pose, to strangle a noble impulse. He who with 
his ow^n hand runs a dagger into the heart of a fellow- 
being or into his own heart is cowardly. But he 



LO\T .\XD LOY.\LTY 



who stabs a great purpose to its death, who kills 
noble intentions in his own or other Hves, is the 
basest of murderers. 

In the Arabian Nights is the ston' of a king who 
was about to buy five beautiful maidens. They were 
allowed to plead their own cause. One of them 
told of two brothers in Israel, one of whom asked the 
other : 

'■'Of all the deeds thou hast done, which was the most 
wicked?" 

"This," replied the brother. "I passed hj sl hen roost one 
day ; I stretched out my arm, seized a chicken, and strangled it, 
and then flung it back into the roost. This is the wickedest 
deed of my life. What is thy wickedest action, O brother?" 

And the second brother replied: 

'T praj'ed to Allah one daj^ to demand a favor of him, 
for it is onl}^ when the soul is simply uplifted on high that 
prayer can be beautiful." 

And another of the maidens said: 

"Learn to know thyself, O King. Do thou not act until 
then, and then do thou act in accordance with all thy desires, 
ha-ving great care alwa3^s that thou do not injure thy neighbor." 

Now we are coming into the higher realms where 
the truer self lives. To be true to this alone is the 
only way of escaping disloyalty to other men. 

Here is another ston^ from the Arabian XightSj 
as told by ^Maeterlinck : 

Khalif Omar, with his venerable teacher, Abou-Zeid, walked 
forth in the darkness of the night, far from his palace gate, 
where he saw a feeble nre burning. He sought it and found a 



CIL\IL\CTER-BUILDIXG 



451 



poor woman trying to bring a caldron to the boiling point while 
two wretched children clung to her, piteously moaning. 

'"Peace unto rhee, 0 woman I What dost thou here alone in 
the night and the cold?" said the khalif. 

'"I am trying to make this water boil that my children 
may drink, who perish of hunger and cold; but for the misery 
we have to bear, Allah will surely one day ask reckoning of 
Omar, the khalif." 

"But," said the disguised khalif, "dost thou think, O 
woman, that Omar can know of thy wretchedness?" 

She answered : '"AVherefore, then, is Omar the khalif if he 
be unaware of the misery of his people and of each one of his 
subjects ?" 

The khalif was silent, "Let us go hence," he said to 
Abou-Zeid. He hastened to the store-houses of his kitchen, 
drew forth a sack of flour and a jar of sheep fat. 

'■'0 Abou-Zeid, help thou me to charge these on my back," 
said the khalif. 

"Xot so," replied the attendant; "suffer that I carry them 
on my back, 0 Commander of the Faithful." 
Omar said calmly: 

"Wilt thou also, O Abou-Zeid, bear the weight of my sins 
on the Day of Resurrection?" 

And Abou-Zeid was obliged to lay the jar of fat and the 
sack of flour on the back of the khalif, who hastened to the 
woman by the fire, and with his own hands did he put the flour 
and the fat into the caldron over the fire, which fire he quick- 
ened with his breath, and the smoke whereof filled his beard. 

\\'hen the food was prepared, with his own breath did he 
cool it that the children might eat. Then he left the sack and 
the jar and went his way saying: 

"0 Abou-Zeid. the light from this fire that I have beheld 
today has enlightened me also." 

After all, my young friends, that is the highest 



452 



LOVE AND LOYALTY 



illumination, the clearest light, which will guide us 
into the usefulness which is the reward of the high- 
est loyalty. It is not far away from any of us ; it is a 
short walking distance from the king's palace to the 
widow's fire and the orphan's pot of thin soup, but 
it is a walking distance; we cannot ride; we cannot 
fly to the illuminations of disinterestedness; we must 
go and carry our own bag of flour, our own pot of 
fat. 

"Always room at the top," do they say? Yes, 
but, as President Jordan quotes from someone, "The 
elevator is not running." We must climb; we must 
keep going; safety is in motion, not in standing. 

A few weeks ago I rode on the top of a four- 
horse stage over a giddy mountain road in Arizona, 
which was carved out of the side of the ledge of 
Fish Creek Cafion. The road was precipitous and 
winding. A few feet, and, at times, a few inches of 
deviation from the beaten track would have precipi- 
tated horses, stage, driver, and riders into the bottom 
of the cafion, seven hundred or a thousand feet 
below. To halt, to hold back, to stop there to test 
wheels or to tighten a girth, would have been peril- 
ous, might have been calamitous. But the driver 
cracked his whip; the horses trotted gaily down the 
royal road amid the inspiring scenery, which filled 
this rider, who sat on the box with the driver, with 
songs and hurrahs. The wheels had been tested and 
the girths tightened before the critical point was 
reached. The horses knew their places; the driver 



CHARACTER-BUILDING 



453 



knew the road; we were all safe if we kept going; 
safety was in motion. Courage is in the forward 
look. Keep going when you come to the precipitous 
places in life; whip up and ride merrily along. 

"It is looking down that makes us dizzy," says 
Browning. Look up and go ahead. This glow, this 
courage, this safety, this power, can be represented 
by no other word so well as by the word ''enthusi- 
asm," a word coined by the unerring insight of the 
Greek — "ev ^eo?— "God within." 

Young John Ruskin, to please his lady-love, wrote 
"The King of the Golden River," a delightful bit 
of fairy tale which surprised his friends and delights 
all readers. But the younger John Ruskin, to right 
the wrongs of a maligned artist, to befriend a friend- 
less genius, undertook the far greater task of writing 
his Modern Painters, which made Turner famous 
and John Ruskin the master art-critic in the English 
language. 

It is only by earnest and high service that we can 
be true to that self that is enriched by all the past and 
enkindled by the unmeasured future. 

Above all, to thine own self be true, 
And it must follow as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man. 



POSTLUDE 

And the child Samuel ministered unto Jehovah 
before Eli. And the zvord of Jehovah was precious 
in those days; there was no frequent vision. And it 
came to pass at that time zvhen Eli was laid dozvn in 
his place {nozi' his eyes had begun to zvax dim, so that 
he coidd not see), and the lamp of God zvas not yet 
gone out, and Samuel zvas laid down to sleep, in the 
temple of Jehovah, where the ark of God was; that 
Jehovah called Samuel: and he said. Here am I. 
And he ran unto Eli, and said. Here am I; for Thou 
calledst me. And he said, I called not; lie down 
again. And he went and lay down. And Jehovah 
called yet again, Samuel. And Samuel arose and 
zvent to Eli, and said. Here am I; for thou calledst 
me. And he answered, I called not, my son; lie dozvn 
again. Now Samuel did not yet know Jehovah, 
neither was the word of Jehovah yet revealed unto 
him. And Jehovah called Samuel again the third 
time. And he arose and went to Eli, and said, Here 
am I; for thou calledst me. And Eli perceived that 
Jehovah had called the child. Therefore Eli said 
unto Samuel, Go, lie dozvn: and it shall be, if he call 
thee, that thou shalt say, Speak, Jehovah; for thy 
servant heareth. So Samuel zvent and lay down in 
his place. And Jehovah came, and stood, and called 
as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel 
said. Speak, for thy servant heareth. 

— I Samuel 3 : i-i i 

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